Steve couldn't make the race last night, so was asking how it went. So here's the story as it appeared from the cockpit. It was a nice night. Variable wind but enough to get us around 3 times with the big #1. Wind speed varied from about 8 to 18 knots. The wind shifted so that the buck became more of a fetch.
We had Wayne helping Pam on the winches and the rest of the crew in their normal spots with Susan on main, and Audrey and Kathleen on foredeck. Nansi was working, Chris was still trapped in Vancouver, and Trevor took his own boat out. Wayne and Pam worked out their own system on the winches which involved Wayne tailing and Pam grinding. But it meant Pam worked pretty hard all might. Good thing she's a strong girl.
Graham was away at Cork so Don Ferguson ran the race. The wind was from the SW and it was a windward/ leeward course 3x around with the start off Red Path and the 1st leg toward RCYC.
Ron screwed up the start AGAIN. Got there early and jibed around into a lull so couldn't get back to the line despite Kathleen's frantic encouragement to do so. We started below the line near the pin end with Veloche behind and to weather. Abra got the jug and was above Veloche. But we had clear air and Veloche was eating Abra's dirt so we pulled a head and Veloche had to tack away. But there was lots of wind going into the Island and Susan had to drop the traveller a number of times to keep Circe off her ear. We were pinned by GWTW on our quarter for the whole starboard tack into the Island so could not tack. For a boat with that rating she was holding her own quite nicely, thank you. So we had to carry past the lay line almost into the club before GWTW tacked allowing us to tack for the mark. We got to the mark on port tack with GWTW immediately to leeward and on the outside, so we rounded ahead of her. Abra actually rounded ahead of BS and we rounded ahead of Veloche.
It was a dead run the next leg with Audrey and Kathleen working well with the pole. The next leg had boats rounding immediately and coming straight into the port tack running fleet on close hauled starboard tack. So it got a bit dicey trying to get to the mark and avoid close hauled starboard tack boats coming right at you . We carried on a hundred yards on port after rounding before we tacked on to starboard. We were well above the weather mark for most of the leg and then the wind backed so we were struggling to make the mark, then discovered we were struggling to make the wrong mark so had to throw in a couple of extra tacks to get around the correct mark. The next time around was a similar story except we went for the correct mark and managed to avoid any tacks and the run to the finish had become a broad reach. So no pole work but Aud and Kathleen were holding down the jib clue. We finished behind Abra and Blue Streak (who we didn't see much of the whole race) but well ahead of Veloche.
But on corrected time we finished 2nd, with BS 1st, and Abra 3rd, and Veloche 4th. The corrected times were,
BS 46:57 min
Circe 49:39
Abra 49:58
Veloche 50.04
So, Blue Streak on corrected time was 2 minutes 42econds ahead of us. I know of no way to make up that kind of time. But on the positive side we were 19 seconds ahead of Abra and 26 seconds ahead of Veloche. Those times make sense, but two minutes plus? I don't think so.
Thanks Wayne for joining Circe for this race. It was great to have you on board. I hope I wasn't too badly behaved during moments of crisis. If I was, I apologize. The rest of the crew are getting used to my bad behavior but it can be a shock to those not familiar with it. I promise to behave better in future. But I have made that promise before.
So, who's on for next more abuse next Wednesday??
Skipper Ron