It was a perfect night for our first race of the year. Just as forecast by Predict Wind it was 10 knots out of the north gusting to 15. But shifty in strength and direction.
Trevor had to bail at the last minute due to work pressure but we had Audrey back on the foredeck with Pam and Kathleen, Susan on main, and Nansi coaching Gary Handley, our new winchman, on the use of said winches.
The fleet: we now have a sister ship...
The fleets have been rejigged a bit this year and there are a couple of new boats in the mix. We are still Division 1, and counter intuitively starting last again. but in addition to the usual suspects of Blue Streak, Abracadabra, Veloce, we have Alpha Omega added to Division 1 as well as a new boat to the club, Circe's near twin sister, Roel Vanderwal's Viking 33, Amelie. Everyone was out last night except Abra. The only confusion was that Steve Hill's new Catalina 36, Prosecco, started with us but is actually in Division 2. It says something about the Catalina's sailing ability relative to Circe's that at 2 and a half feet longer it rates 11 points slower!
A Vanderbilt whaaat?
After some hesitation about what jib to use we went big with the #1. A good call. It was a triangle course but amazingly only twice around. The committee boat end was favoured and we opted for the Vanderbilt starting procedure but between Susan and I we managed to screw up the arithmetic under the pressure of the moment and got to the line 12 seconds early. But there was just enough room below us to Veloce to run the line a little until forced up by Veloce. Life was further complicated by Kathleen sighting the line to the wrong mark and thinking we were miles from the line. After listening carefully for an over early call and hearing none we carried on. And luckily the wind backed a bit negating the boat end favoured.
So we were not in bad shape with Veloce to leeward and BS to windward but sailing over us. So we tacked away onto port behind BS and had to duck Prosecco and held on until the starboard layline before tacking for the mark. At the mark Veloche just snuck in front on port and tacked around a couple of feet ahead. Blue Streak and Alpha Omega were ahead. Amelie was behind. We tried for the whole leg to get our nose inside Veloce for the overlap but just couldn't do it so jibed around the second mark right on her transom and quickly got above her after the jibe on the third leg. Mark didn't luff and we sailed over her and past and got to the third mark well ahead of Veloce right on Alpha's transom. We both started off on the second buck on port tack but we were getting back wind from Alpha so quickly tacked onto starboard. Veloce had already tacked at the mark so that put her neatly in our dirt Alpha tacked over soon after. We them got an amazing lift and hung on until it backed again and we tacked for the mark. Alpha tacked ahead and below us, maybe trying to backwind us again, but we got to the weather of them so could tack first and rounded ahead.
After rounding we sailed over Gone with the Wind and fought off Alpha from windward and astern for the rest of the leg and rounded the second jibe mark clear ahead of everyone and looked back at a jumble of GWTW, Alpha, and Veloce stopped dead at the mark with Prosecco closing in . We simply sailed away to the finish.
But it was such a lovely night and such a short race that no one wanted to stop. So we sailed up wind again to the city and spurred by Audrey's enthusiasm, ran downwind to the club wing and wing with the pole on.
We won the jug, and won the race!
We got in not only to discover that we got the jug but we won the race!!
And Gary looks like a good addition to the crew. He learns quickly, is enthusiastic, strong, and has a high pain threshold. And willing to come back. Welcome aboard Gary!!
A good start to the 2015 season.
-Skipper Ron