RACE REPORT - June 3, 2015

Crew
Audrey, Kathleen, Trevor - Foredeck
Susan - Main Sheet & and Start timer
Gary, Steve A - Jib Sheets
Chris Brown - All around good guy and special guest
Ron - Steering
Pam was giving her sore elbow a rest, Nansi decided there were enough on board, Steve M was still south, and Trevor's RS400 was STILL not ready so he joined us sore foot and all.

Wind
It was blowing nicely. About 12 knots gusting to 18 out of the east. But a bit shifty. East winds are usually more steady so was surprised to find this shifting through 20 degrees. But otherwise a perfect evening for a sailboat race,

Sail Selection
The big #1, of course, with all that testosterone on board.

Course
Windward/leeward with start in the middle of the Bay and the windward mark in the east end. But 4X around!

Race
Our division was well represented with seven boats. We did the Vanderbilt start technique again with the new app Ron created on his phone. It worked well and we were right on the line when the gun went. We started at the committee boat end with Blue Streak, Veloce, and Alpha Omega starting at the pin end. I didn't see where Amelia and Kokoro started. Abracadabra was right behind us. We stayed high feeding Abra as much backwind as we could, until she was forced to tack away. We hung on to stay with the rest of the fleet heading into the city shore until they started to tack for the mark. Blue Streak crossed our bow but being on starboard we forced Alpha to duck our stern and tacked ahead and to leeward of Veloce. We stayed high on Veloce slowly creeping across her bow. At the mark BS was first around, Abra just crossed our bow coming in on starboard and when we tacked for the mark we rounded third.
The downwind leg was a dead run and we went wing and wing with Abra not far ahead and Alpha and Veloce close behind and closing slightly. We held them off and rounded just behind Abra and ahead of Alpha and Veloce and held onto port tack toward the Island. Alpha and Veloce tacked away right after the mark onto starboard toward the city. We hung on to port and tacked after Abra went over. When we met Alpha again after they tacked back on to port they had gained and crossed our bow. We tacked over for the mark and rounded right behind Alpha. Veloce had dropped back a bit further. We closed on Alpha a little on the wing and wing and rounded right behind her and worked our way to weather and tacked onto starboard. Alpha hung on a little then tacked over too. Short of the lay line we tacked back onto port and were forced to duck Alpha who tacked almost immediately after. But they lost enough distance on the tack that we managed to work our way to weather on them and tack ahead at the mark. We held on ahead for the run and on the final buck when they tacked for the windward mark we tacked on top of them to weather and gave them enough dirt to increase our lead even further.
It was a great sailboat race, especially with Alpha Omega. Gary and Steve A worked the winches like Trojans and the foredeck crew skirted the jib nicely and we had some superlative tacks. With 4 times around we had lots of tacks. We had lots of pole work too and the foredeck crew did great work downwind as well. Susan as always did great work on the mainsheet and kept the skipper bone dry all race. In fact everyone stayed dry and fully clothed the whole race and we finished with the same soles we started with again. And I think Chris had fun too just being out on Circe again. It was great having him on board again.

Results
We won. The race and the jug!! On corrected time Alpha Omega finished 2nd, 56 seconds behind us. Blue Streak was 3rd, 15 seconds behind Alpha, Veloce was 4th, 10 seconds behind BS. Abra was 5th, Kokoro 6th, and Amelia 7th. Amelia ran aground off Algonquin Island on one of the upwind legs as Pam and Frannie watched from the end of our street.