April 08, 2004
April Series Race 1
Light winds, clear skies. Wind ranged from probably 3kts to 10kts. I tried to start at the boat end but was too early and ended up sailing down the line. At the start, I ended up midline to windward of the Thistle, but couldn't point with him and lost a lot of speed. We tacked away as soon as we could, but it wasn't early enough because we had another boat to windward. My general impression is the boat was slower than she should have been. How much of this is rustiness on our part, and how much is the tune, I'm not clear. The plan for next week will be to reduce the prebend a little, if the winds are similar.
At the last windward mark rounding we were slightly behind the Flying Junior. The PHRF mark was to the right and to windward of our mark. Several PHRF boats were rounding their marks, and although we had the right of way, being leeward and starboard, we realized that they would not likely yield to us. Also, we were below the layline. So we tacked. The Flying Junior did not and was fouled by at least three of the PHRF boats, despite his hails of "Starboard". And none of the boats exonerated themselves despite his hail of "Protest".
We have a different spinnaker pole stowing system which I found in Sarasota.
The diagram is here:
I recorded a GPS track and will post it later.