August 07, 2003
August Series Race 2
This was an interesting race, We had a reasonably good start, but things went downhill from there. We stayed on starboard tack a long time. I was thinking that we had to be getting foo far left, So we tacked. BIG, BIG mistake, because the rest of the fleet went further left, and tacked later. We started getting lifted on port tack, and they did, too. since they were further left, they pulled ahead in the persistent shift. We rounded third behind Dick Hoover's Lido-14 and Paul Shield's FJ. We hoisted the 'chute for the reach, but the wind was so far forward, we could barely carry it and I think it hurt us. We rounded the mark, still in third. I thought we could hold the course, but I was wrong, we were by the lee and had to jibe. Now we were reaching on port tack and were able to carry the spinnaker, but we didn't get any closer to the two boats ahead.
We rounded the leeward mark and had a lot of trouble getting the spinnaker down. I don't know why, what caused it, if it was a one time problem, or if there's something that needs to be fixed.
We sailed right, but I think we should have tacked and gone left earlier. Dick was covering us, and Paul moved ahead of Dick. This was similar to the situation I had at NACs. I still don't know how to deal with it. We went too far left at the end of the beat. We should have gone left much earlier.
On the run, were able to pass Dick, but only just. We finished overlapped with Dick and Tom Kaczmarek's Vanguard-15. So we ended up with second, it was a fun but at times frustrating, race. I think that using this GPS will help me analyze my errors and make me a better sailor.
