Sailing Blog
2 Races Completed on Day 1 of E Invitational »
July 9, 2010
Very brief race report due to a long day on the water and with packing still to do for departure for Lake Garda tomorrow…bed is beckoning:
Race 1 got underway after a 2 hour delay due to lack of breeze and a sunny, clear day on Minnetonka. When the breeze filled in around 1pm, the fleet of 51 boats started after a few general recalls. Halfway up the first windward beat, it was very evident that the breeze had not settled as there were 30-40 shifts with velocity ranging from 4-11 mph. Rob Evans jumped out a nice lead for the first lap with M-11, M-42, V-37, M-3 and T0-101 on his tail. Rob would eventually give way to Erik Bowers on the M-11 with V-37 edging out M-42.
Race 2 was similar conditions to race 1, but it seemed that the velocity would be a bit more steady. The only difference however was that the range of velocity had just gotten bigger. There were now bigger puffs, and the lulls were just as big which made the position changes huge. Chris Jewett jumped out to a big lead and held onto it the whole race with Augie Barkow one boat behind. Most impressive was the performance of Peter Slocum who is racing in his vintage wooden E Scow, symmetrical spinnaker and plated rudders and took a 3rd place in race 2…very impressive.
The M42 had a tough race 2 and it is always a good reminder that when you are coming back from a tough start, first beat, or whatever has gotten you into the bottom of the fleet, you have to be perfect from then on to have a good result. After a decent start and in the front group on the left side, we took one bite left and found ourselves parked near the top mark on port tack while a train of starboard tack boats poured in from the right side. After a windward mark leading only 10 or so boats, Chrisy and Tony did a great job of hanging tough and battling with me to get back to into the same area code as the front group on the last beat. Once we got there however, our luck ran out and just like the first beat, we took on hitch left too many and once again found ourselves parked at the finish line with 20 boats fully hiked flying in on startboard tack. Very painful.
Tomorrow should be better with solid breeze forecast for what should be 3 good races.
I am hoping John Dennis can get some solid results for the M-42 while I am en route to Lake Garda on some cramped airline seat for 12 hours. Stay posted…
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