AYC WNR Series 2 Number 1 on 12 June 2019

Date: 12 June 2019 18:00 till 12 June 2019 21:00
Endpoints: Yacht Haven Annapolis to Yacht Haven Annapolis
Purpose: Racing
Complement: TC Williams, Dave Butta, Rick Williams, Christian Douglas, , and Jonathan Bresler
Weather: Force 4 from South-southeast, fading toward the finish. 70's
Engine Hours: 208.9 to 209.7
Chart: 12282 Chesapeake Bay Severn and Magothy Rivers

Course: A2.
Time limit: 2020.
Sails: Interrupt mainsail, Tatus II genoa and spinnaker.

Beautiful night for a sail. Very happy to be on the water. Very happy that AYC held the race.

Started on port tack. Was over the line near the start but managed to either duck the line in time or to duck the line and start cleanly so quickly that the race committee did not call us over early. Started to leeward and about a boat length LinGin. LinGin pull away on the beat to the turning mark, leaving us to fight it out with Laughing Gull. Laughing Gull started on starboard tank, I think, and then tacked over to port.

Tacked to starboard near the entrance to Lake Ogleton once the water had shoaled to 10 feet and less. LinGin kept going and tacked later, as did Laughing Gull. LinGin was ahead on port and Laughing Gull crossed our bow after the tack. Our tack forced White Cap to duck us. LinGin rounded the windward mark ahead of everyone and set their spinnaker quite slowly. For some reason Tim was on bow and Brian Palmer driving.

At the windward mark, we came in on port with Laughing Gull, Ronin, and White Cap on starboard. Tacked to starboard, ahead and below White Cap, and below both Laughing Gull and Ronin. Both Laughing Gull and Ronin slowed in rounding the mark while we did not. Rounded hard on Ronin's stern. TC decided to stand in the middle of the boat completely blocking my view during the most critical part of this manuever as we moved from Ronin's port quarter to their starboard quarter. No idea how close we came. It was close. Could not see a damn thing. Ended up tight on Laughing Gull's port quarter, within spitting distance, so close that I continually monitored the distance to make sure that we did not contact Laughing Gull.

Time to put up the kite. Up it goes with a a horrible hour glass. Took half the downwind leg to clear the issue, by then Laughing Gull was well ahead, one hundred yards, more? TC suggests that the problem is the lack of swiveling shackles on the spinnaker sheets in place of the existing Ronstan RF6100 small fixed snap shackle . Both LinGin and Laughing Gull doused before R"8". Rounded R"8" with the leaders for the J/30 fleet just a couple boat lengths behind. We carried the spinnaker to G"SC" and gained considerably on Laughing Gull in the process without losing ground to the J/30's. Wanted to douse to happen a bit early, before we reached G"SC". Did not happen. Doused quite close to G"SC". Very poor. The spinnaker was completely loose with foreguy run, halyard slacked off and sheet quite eased so that the sail was well to leeward of the boat. Fortunately, there was no one there for us to contact with the kite. There was and attempt to bring the sail in behind the main and over top of the boom. Rick Chambers put to a stop to that silliness. Somehow, the port spinnaker line was lost. No one can find the red 5/16" Sta-Set line onboard.

Without the spinnaker, we were doing 6 knots easily. With the spinnaker, speeds as shown by the GPS, reached as high as 7.6 knots.

Finished ahead of the J/30's with TOTALed MAYHEM hot on our heels. Which means that from R"8" to the finish, the J/30's gained only a few boat lengths on us despite their carrying spinnakers as long as we did. Two J/30's finished ahead of us. The J/30 rates 144 PHRF vs our 231. Must be the difference between upwind sailing vs reaching.

Finishing order: LinGin, Laughing Gull, Constance. Second-2-Nun. Skybird did not start.

distance: ~7nm