Sailing Blog
Day 1: Round the Island Race »
June 11, 2010
Day 1 of the NYYC Annual Regatta was a 19mile(ish) race around Jamestown Island which is just across the harbor from Newport. We left the dock with a crew of 20 at 11am for a noon start, which was to be postponed do to a lack of wind. During the postponement, we motored around the starting area, slaloming between the hundred or so smaller boats while sizing up our competition in the big boat class.
After 30-40 minutes of delay, a nice SE breeze filled and the RC took down the postponement flag. With the starting line set with a port favored bias, we decided the whether end would be good place to start since the big bubbas (Rambler, Titan XV, Puma VOR 70) would be at the pin and we would not have a match on speed and clean air would be a priority. Once the gun went, we did a great job of living on the hip of Rambler and Titan on Starboard tack to the end of the harbor. We got into a tough spot shortly before the turning mark when we tacked leeward and ahead of Rambler only to get rolled a few minutes later, and had to eat their gas for several minutes since we were already laying the mark…the bad air off the mast of a 90 footer lasted a bit longer than we expected!
We rounded the turning mark in 3rd, ahead of Puma which was great since they owed us time. The team up front did a great job of getting the kite up cleanly and as we made our way down the West side of Jamestown, we threw in 12-15 gybes which were executed very well. Rambler used their size downwind to extend nicely, and we were able to stay in the same area code as Titan and we put some nice lengths on Puma by the end of the downwind.
Once we turned the corner to make our way back to Newport, we had a nice 10-12 S breeze and I got to flex my muscles on the runners and bone them to a solid 10.4 tons. I managed only to make one rookie mistake (at least that I know about) when I went to ease the runner (the runner is a backstay that helps depower the rig) it did not have enough wraps on the winch and it slipped a good 6″, sent a nice pop up the mast which resulted in 20 sets of eyes looking back at me wondering what had just happened. I did my best to avoid eye contact and focused on grinding back in the tension I lost. As we got closer to the finish, we bore off towards Newport Harbor still in 3rd place, thinking we would be in 3rd on corrected time behind Rambler and Titan.
After a quick debrief and a wash of the boat with a few wash down beers, we found out we were able to edge Rambler, but could not get ahead of Titan on corrected time. 2nd overall for the Around the Island race. I thought this was the first “race” of the NYYC Regatta, but apparently the slate is cleaned for the buoy racing the next 2 days. We are going to have our hands full in our fleet with the boats we raced against today and we did not get a look at Ran as they decided to practice crew work instead of partaking in the action today.
Check out the NYYC site for results throughout the weekend. Time to hop in the shower for another crew dinner…
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