Dirty Air Showers...Bring Rum and a Win over BS!

CREW

Kathleen,  Pam - Foredeck

Susan - Main Sheet

Steve, Mike Erdle - Jib Sheets

Ron - Steering

Our regular Mike (Vassallo) was off somewhere so we shanghaied another Mike (Erdle) who we found wandering the streets because his usual ride, Veloce, was off cruising.

Nansi was working

Chris and Audrey were out west

WIND & SAIL SELECTION

Out of the dreaded north oscillating from 3 knots to 15 and swinging through 40 degrees shifts. We went with the heavy #1.

COURSE

NWE buoys to port triangle 3x around with the start mid bay east end and weather mark at the city.

THE COMPETION

Veloce was still away cruising and Alpha Omega was missing. Initram, the C&C35, decided to join the party, so it was us against them, Abracadabra, and Blue Streak.

RACE

The line for the first starts was heavily committee boat favoured and it looked like you could almost lay the weather mark on starboard tack. But by our start it had swing back to the west to a heavily pin end favoured.  Blue Streak  tried a port tack start but miss timed it and got headed. Not sure what Abra was trying but she failed to lay the start mark on Starboard and tacked on to port. We carried on Starboard tack but it was looking like there was more wind to the east so we tacked over but it was to leeward of Abra who got to weather and showering us with dirty air so we tacked back onto starboard. This turned out to be a very good move. Abra and Blue Streak carried on east to the lay line and tacked back. But they ran out of wind and got headed so had the tack back to round the mark. We tacked back to port to close on the mark and got an amazing lift up to the mark while our two friends were struggling to round the mark. We rounded just behind Abra with BS not much further ahead.

The second leg was a dead down wind wing and wing run and the third leg was a close hauled reach back to the east mark. We managed to keep both our faster competitors close at hand and had a good race 3x around. At the finish we were close enough to Blue Streak and Abra to be pretty certain of beating Abra and were wondering that if we weren't able to beat BS tonight we never would.

RESULTS

We did not win the jug but we did win our division. We beat Blue Streak, who finished second, by almost a minute and a half on corrected time! Abra was third and Initram fourth.

Again, well done Circe crew!!!

Skipper Ron