260916 PEYC Fall 4 of 5

Creation: 260917 0709 Last Modified: 260917 0709

Crew

Position	Person
Helm	Lynn Ellwood
Main	Sue Fraser
Middle 1	Steve Ellwood
Middle 2
Mast	Joel Massicotte]
Bow	Howard Whittaker

Course

D2 changed to D 1.5 with downwind finish. 2 / 4 marks.

Weather

Wind from the south, streaky gusts rolling down from the top of the bay but nothing crazy. 6 knots to 12 knots, based around 8. There was eventually a shift to the right as expected. Finding a lane and travelling through it to connect to the next lane was what the evening was all about.

Race Result

We won. Handily.

The series is ours. 4 races and 1 drop.

But Lickety still beat us on corrected around the course.

But only by 23 corrected seconds. We are getting there.

Race Review

We wanted a RC side start heading off on stbd. Lynn and Sue delivered it. Most other boats were down at the pin. It might have been that the pin was favoured but the congestion I think slowed them.

Bear and Rebel were both on the far left side - we couldn’t cross them. Pin favoured I guess. We tacked out near but not on the layline heading to the windward mark. Rebel and Bear tacked as we did, above us but tracking parallel. Rebel was closer to the eastern shore and so they were lifted on port more than we were. Picton Bay knowledge perhaps.

Bear was in the disturbed air of Rebel all the way up and so they fell behind. Rebel got to the mark before us but only by 2 boat lengths.

At windward mark #2, with the wind direction the operation was hoist and gybe out.

We did that, well executed. We took the Ranger’s transom and headed out the middle. Rebel stayed along the shore - more Picton Bay knowledge?

We tracked with them but they definitely had more breeze on the eastern side. We sailed our VMG as best we could - given the pressure mentally to turned down. Lynn stuck at it.

At the leeward mark we carried the chute until almost the last second - I thought we hauled it down a little early but I always think that ;-), we then rounded wide and close inside Rebel, who was just ahead.

Rebel was sailing higher but same speed as us. We started to feel their disturbed air and so we peeled off, they followed in a loose cover.

I think where they tacked was better pressure. No surprise, when we started feeling them we had to go, no control over our decision. They were free to pick a lane.

Up the beat Bear did not keep up. They had halyard problems.

We were close to Rebel at the top, the course had been shortened so we were off to the finish under spinnaker.

Another smooth hoist.

We followed Rebel along the shore for a while, they owe us time and so covering them, even from behind was the way to go.

We gybed out as the wind softened. Headed to the RC to finish.

Easy peasy. A well sailed race.

Lessons Learned

At leeward mark roundings, carrying speed into the mark matters a lot. The no pole method is a winner every time. Of course being inside is always best too. The no pole method requires us to be on the inside so we can head dead down wind for the drop.

Sue has always been a fan of all the sheets in the cabin. I ran the #1 gennie alone, doing break and trim. We had only one twist in the sheets - we always need to be monitoring the sheets.

And Howard and Joel dragged the sail around such that my job was taking up the slack as they pulled. This was very very effective.

A fine night for a sailboat race. Thank you all.