We were mis-scored in the first race on Friday. We are showing as a "9th," but that had us finishing the race 2 hours later than the final boat in our section.
This is why we were so surprised at the scoring, but we didn't dig too deeply into it. We should have been scored a "6th" place finish, and then we would have ended the regatta 1 point out of 1st place, instead of 4. We are still in second place, though... Go Maskwa!
Friday morning started out nice and foggy. And cold. And wet. Perfect. How many races do we really want to do in the 90F+ degree heat anyways?
We were showing 11 crewmembers all day, and it looked like we'd be using all that weight on the low side, to heel the boat. We had a bunch of experienced hands, though, so that made things fun.
The first race was a drifter. They shortened the course to a simple 2 leg race, and then the wind started filling in right as we finished, so our competition managed to jump into the handicap window we needed in order to do well. We were 3rd over the finish line, but were 6th, on handicap. Given that we were by far the fastest boat rated in the section, not only did we have to be first over the finish line, but we had to beat most boats in our section by at least 30-45 seconds for every mile we raced. We owed the slowest rated boat in our section a good 4 minutes.. that is very hard time to make up in a short short race (They were only running 1 mile legs, so with a 3.7 mile race, we owed some boats a good 4+ minutes. Considering we were finishing in 40 minutes tops, giving up 10% of your time is a big handicap... so we just needed to sail as fast as possible!)
At the end of race 1, with everything going normally, but the wind suddenly piping up, we crossed the finish behind (eek) Whisper and Saucy, and then had 3 more boats 'correct' over us. When we went to take down the chute, everything was going well, but we managed to 'sky' the port Spinnaker halyard, so we were down to a single halyard for our sets.... could be dicey... if we lost another one!
Race #2 went off perfectly with a 1st place finish, and in Race #3 we managed to sky the other spin halyard. So, it was a good thing that racing for the day was over, since we had lost both of our spin halyards, and if they had run another race, we would have been at a huge disadvantage.
We finished the day with race results of-- 9th (actually 6th,) 1st, and 3rd. Done for the day at 4th place for the section.
Saturday stared well. More fog. Wind. Rain. No stinkin' visibility in the fog, of course. Thank goodness for GPS!
Saturday was our day to shine. We beat up on the boats at the starts, and managed to finish the day with 2 ripped sails, and 3 races finished at 1st, 1st, and 3rd. 2nd place overall for the regatta, and another day of sailing to go!
Sunday's racing did not go that terribly well right at the start. We knew we were going to play a little conservatively, but we had room to give, and as long as we were up near the top in any races they did, we should finish fairly well. We managed to not break anything... or rip anything, or do anything else to cost Don the big $$, and finished 5th and 2nd. This was enough to give us a 2nd overall for the Regatta, losing out only to Opus Dei, one of those magic Olson 30s. They're even from Tennessee!!
It was a great weekend, and we really got to test our mettle. We have never even finished on the podium for this regatta. For some reason, it always seems like it takes us a little while to get up to speed for the season; we usually do better after the Mac, especially the Verve.
We had a great crew all 3 days, and everyone really busted their butts at every position. There was some blood shed, and some sail ripped and patched, and all kinds of madness, carnage, and mayhem, but we stuck it out, and got our first 2nd position on the winners stand ever in the NOOD.
What a ripping good weekend!
Joanna and Ryan participated in their first NOODs, and we were pleased to have a great friend in from Denver, Dave "Sabu" Gillespie, for all 3 days. Adam came out for the weekend, sailing his first NOOD, and just had a rock star bunch. Don, Carly, Andrew, Ryan, Dave, Caliente Mark, and I raced all 3 days. We had Nicole and Jim Stanton, Manny, Joanna, Ute, and Anna coming out filling in the gaps in our coverage, and giving us much needed talent.
Definitely a great weekend!
On another note, our good friends over on Turning Point won 1st place for their section, and for the Bene 40.7s, the NOOD are their North American Championships, so they get their boat name on the ship's hull trophy for the 40.7 NAs... Let's give a big congrats to them, too!
Hope everyone had a great weekend... more sailing to come!!
Scott
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