Racing

I wimped out on racing Fearless on Opening Day, due to alarming wind forecasts (naturally, conditions proved to be somewhat less extreme, although it was breezy). Centerboard fleet had race committee duty the second weekend, so Fearless's first racing of the 2004 season was March 21. It was less than a total success--sails were set for the high winds when we first went out, and it got lighter. The bail where the boom vang attaches to the boom broke off. But we did keep the sails dry, and we were there, which counts for a lot in series racing.

First regatta of the season was the Spring Regatta on April 3. Two distance races (not all that long distance, because the winds were iffy). Had an abysmal start in the first race--managed to be in the absolute last corner of the pack that the new wind got to. Made a couple unsuccessful attempts to fly the spinnaker, then gave up. Finished pretty well back, but finished. Second race went much better. Fixed a couple problems (mainsheet purchase set for the original light air, too much slack in jib halyard), wind was more consistent, made some good guesses about when to tack. Won the race, and our fleet (most of which didn't finish either race), and corrected over the A fleet boats for circuit purposes.

Second day of series racing for the season, the next day, went pretty much like the first, except there were more boats racing in the centerboard fleet and somewhat less wind, and we didn't break anything (came close to losing a top batten in the regatta, but didn't break anything there, either). Humiliatingly bad first race, did better in the second after the wind had steadied down and A fleet was in drinking beer instead of out flying enormous spinnakers. Meaning, we were still last, but we could actually see some of the other boats. Overall, we finished seventh in the series, finishing four races with places of 3, 3, 7, and 5, all of which happen to exactly equal the total number of boats in the race.

Missed the first weekend of the summer series, too, being tired from crewing on the last boat to finish the Night Race the evening before and being offered a ride on an Olson 25. Have completed five races to date, with one non-last-place finish, although in general turnout has been fairly light and the numbers don't look too bad. The DNF was due to my second capsize, which occurred immediately after a jibe in about 15-knot winds while, due to a bout of temporary insanity, flying the spinnaker. Which wrapped itself around the forestay so tightly we could not get it down until we were back at the dock. My crew, Robin, performed admirably throughout and was actually willing to get on the boat again in even windier conditions (though without the spinnaker) for the next weekend of the series (getting into the 20s--that was one wet ride). We had no competition for the second race and received our second first-place finish of the series (the other resulted when we got the course right and the other boat didn't).