With Dwaine and Deanne out of action for this week, I had the good fortune of being able to race on 3957 with Michael and Elizabeth O'Brien last night. And what a strange night, with the wind shifting very nearly through 360 degrees during the course of the night. And what a COLD night it was, with a massive storm cell off to the east pushing cold mountain air down to us.
In the first race, started in a puffy, shifting southerly, Michael executed a perfect pin-end start, winning the pin with 1160 just above us. We legged out to the left with 3959 just off our weather hip. We eventually climbed up to their line, they tacked, and we finally had a clear lane to tack back-just in time because we were on layline! With the weather mark (Z) to the right, we had the longer part of the beat left on port tack, but the direction and velocity held and we were first to the mark. With the wind still left, we bear-away set then stayed high to keep from being rolled. That let a few boats establish below us, including 3928, who gybed early onto port and slipped past us in a BIG right shift that put the fleet reaching on port gybe into the C mark. The shift held for the final beat, creating a parade. 3928 for the win (now with 5 of 6 races in the series in the top 5), 3957 in second, and 3640 in third with 3955 right behind them.
After a long delay while Kevin wisely waited for the wind direction to settle, we started another short race, this time in a southeasterly. Michael got an excellent mid-line start, and we watched as the fleet split neatly in half to left and right. We seemed to be the only boat to play the middle, and when a monster left shift came in, we were lifted nearly to the mark. The right-side boats were hung out to dry and the left-side boats, who I think had better velocity on the leg, came screaming into the windward mark overstood. 3640 and 3802 were the first boats in from the left. We rounded just behind them and established behind 3640 on what became a reaching leg. A few mid-teen puffs came down the course and Michael got us up on a plane for about 30 seconds, enough to solidify away from the pack behind us and make up a little ground on 3640. A quick tack at the leeward mark put us just outside the port layline to the pin end of the line. But the big left shift gave us no tactical options on the leg, so we followed 3640 as they tacked on sb layline to the (heavily favored) pin end for first, with 3957 in second. 3955 had another solid race, finishing in third, 3928 in fourth.
Top three for the evening's racing:
Lhamon 3640 - 3 1 = 4
O'Brien 3957 - 2 2 = 4
Nielan 3928 - 1 4 = 5
What an interesting spring night of racing. If you weren't there you were likely a lot warmer but having less fun! Hope to see you out there.
Doug Stumberger
