Racing News from Gran dIllusion

Cal sailors,Our performance in series 6 so far has been a bit wanting. We haven't scored any first places in races one, two and three. In race three we didn't even place, and during that start, while trying to defend my spot at the upwind end of the line, a big boat barged into the side of mine and, while trying to shove my boat away (3000 lbs of boat vs. 25,000 lbs of boat) while we were going very slow in light air, it's skipper finally realized she couldn't squeeze into the starting line and turned away sharply, pushing into the side of my boat. Unfortunetely my wrist with my second wrist watch (I put an analog on left wrist, digital on right) got caught on my life line an tore patches of skin off. Blood dripping. Darn! This old skin isn't as tough as it used to be! Race four didn't look so good after my 'first mate' got excited that we were going too fast approaching the start, feathered the sails, and we ended up late and surrounded by bigger boats 'stealing' our wind, but we were able to snake our way between them and found ourselves among the leaders. Later, we fell behind when we sailed into a patch of "no wind". Things looked pretty hopeless as the leaders made it to the windward mark, then headed back down the channel towards the finish while we were still creeping along in the opposite direction. Then.... We had an amazing come from behind race , where we, far behind and at the tail end of the four boats that were still racing in Group A, struggling in nearly dead air as we rounded the windward buoy of the shortened course (all the boats behind us had turned around and abandoned the race for lack of wind) caught and rode a gentle breeze down the main channel, into the massed, stalled boats in the dark by Mariner's Village, out trimmed them using a flashlight on the masthead windtell, squeezed in, and snatched the win at the finish line. Woohoo! Next up is the very last race of the year, the Halloween Regatta. I just found a new experienced sailor who will help out flying the spinnaker, and I'm optomistic about our chances. The whole fleet will be chasing me to the finish, as it's a pursuit race with an 'inverted start' with the boats with the largest handicap start first, then one after another according to their theoretical speed, and everyone is supposed to reach the finish at the same time. So who ever gets there first wins. Just too much adrenaline!Yikes!Jerry - - - -

nice story. thanks john b On Friday, October 25, 2019, 04:18:34 PM CDT, Gerald Sobel so… [at] yahoo.com [Cal_Boats] <ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote: Cal sailors,Our performance in series 6 so far has been a bit wanting. We haven't scored any first places in races one, two and three. In race three we didn't even place, and during that start, while trying to defend my spot at the upwind end of the line, a big boat barged into the side of mine and, while trying to shove my boat away (3000 lbs of boat vs. 25,000 lbs of boat) while we were going very slow in light air, it's skipper finally realized she couldn't squeeze into the starting line and turned away sharply, pushing into the side of my boat. Unfortunetely my wrist with my second wrist watch (I put an analog on left wrist, digital on right) got caught on my life line an tore patches of skin off. Blood dripping. Darn! This old skin isn't as tough as it used to be! Race four didn't look so good after my 'first mate' got excited that we were going too fast approaching the start, feathered the sails, and we ended up late and surrounded by bigger boats 'stealing' our wind, but we were able to snake our way between them and found ourselves among the leaders. Later, we fell behind when we sailed into a patch of "no wind". Things looked pretty hopeless as the leaders made it to the windward mark, then headed back down the channel towards the finish while we were still creeping along in the opposite direction. Then.... We had an amazing come from behind race , where we, far behind and at the tail end of the four boats that were still racing in Group A, struggling in nearly dead air as we rounded the windward buoy of the shortened course (all the boats behind us had turned around and abandoned the race for lack of wind) caught and rode a gentle breeze down the main channel, into the massed, stalled boats in the dark by Mariner's Village, out trimmed them using a flashlight on the masthead windtell, squeezed in, and snatched the win at the finish line. Woohoo! Next up is the very last race of the year, the Halloween Regatta. I just found a new experienced sailor who will help out flying the spinnaker, and I'm optomistic about our chances. The whole fleet will be chasing me to the finish, as it's a pursuit race with an 'inverted start' with the boats with the largest handicap start first, then one after another according to their theoretical speed, and everyone is supposed to reach the finish at the same time. So who ever gets there first wins. Just too much adrenaline!Yikes!Jerry - - - -