Sailing Blog
The Calm before the…calm »
December 11, 2010
The Melges 20 fleet made way to the racecourse around 930 am on Saturday, a nice NW breeze at 9-12 kts was blowing on Biscayne Bay and it looked like it would be a perfect day for sailing with blue skies and sunshine. As we got closer to the RC boat anchored 5-6 miles from shore, it was clear the breeze was not extending very far offshore, and what breeze was reamaing, was dissipating fast. As the breeze hovered around 2-3 kts at 11am, PRO Bruce Gollison had no other choice than to put the Audi Melges 20 Fleet into postponement with the hopes of a Northerly, or Easterly Seabreeze filling. Just as teams were starting to fully kick back in relax mode, the Northerly started to show and a starting line was set.
With the breeze hovering just above class minimums, the RC dropped the postponement flag and gave us a warning signal around noon. As we lined up for the start, keeping speed on was critical since whatever breeze was on the racecourse was hard to come by, and being in a crowd on a start meant you needed to pull the trigger early to get up on the line and establish yourself on in the all important front row. On the M and M, we set our selves up around 1min, and Mary Anne did a great job of getting the boat rolling at 30 seconds and hitting the line at full pace when the gun went. Halfway up the beat, it was clear the breeze was not filling as we had hoped, but there was still enough to race and we worked hard to make the most of our solid start.
After losing our lane a few minutes after the start, we got bounced around in the middle of the course, than finally found ourselves with a clear lane headed to the left side. While we were not sure if this was ideal, we at least had a clean lane and were able to keep up good boat speed. As we slogged left, the breeze started to look a bit better and with the majority of the fleet on the right side of the course, we decided to roll the dice and really send it to the left side. With only 1-2 other boats with us, we tacked onto port and had the nice view of watching the boats on the right trying to get back to the mark with very little pressure and a bad angle. Thankfully we got around the mark with pressure in 3rd place and made our way downwind before our gamble turned to mush.
At the bottom gate, we made some nice gains on the leaders, split gates and we headed to the right side on the next upwind and hoped that the pressure we saw was not just an illusion. we continued on port tack until layline for the new whether mark approached and flopped on to starboard looking like we might have a shot at the lead. As we approached the 1st and 2nd place boats, we had made some nice gains, but not enough to be clear ahead. The 2nd place boat, Ryan DeVos with Morgan Reeser lee bowed us and managed to hang 1/2 boat length to leeward, until 1st place boat Scott Nixon and his skipper John Arendshorst leebowed them and would eventually saw them off. Some seriously tight racing for 3.5 knots of wind! We managed to hang on Scott and John’s hip in 2nd place on a long starboard until the whether mark, and once around the mark, we all set, gybed immediatly and layed the finish line to end a very light air race. Our goal for the day was not to put up a big number, and we survived the only race on day 1 with nice 2nd place.
Regardless if the race was good or bad for a team, everyone stuck around for cold beers and grub at the Coconut Grove Yacht Club which has a very good understanding of what sailors want at the end of a hot, light-air day of sailing…beer and food.
The forecast tomorrow is for nice breeze in the 15-20 range and the goal of the RC is to get off 4 quality races. Stay tuned to 42marine and melges20.com for up to the minute reports. Results here.
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