11 boats started, 6 from Tall Oaks and 5 from Windjammers. One boat from Tall Oaks didn't finish due to a wheel steering malfunction, so 5 boats from each club finished. Tall Oaks took the cup by just 1 point and it was close for the entire race. Sue was giving me a little bit of a hard time for finishing 9th but I said … Hey, our 9th place finish won it for the club! If we were 10th, it would have gone the other way! Seriously, we had a great time and there were a number of close encounters & head-to-head duals during the race to make it exciting. I find that one critical mistake can make a pretty big difference!
About half-way thru the race we were closer to the middle of the fleet. We rounded the leeward mark right on the heels of a larger boat and there were more than a few boats behind us. As we were following the larger boat upwind on port tack, we could not escape the foul air. We could not point higher to get by them and we were closing on them as we footed. But as we got right into their foul air, we also couldn't get by them to leeward because we slowed down in the foul air. The boat ahead of us was overpowered and was having a lot trouble with weather helm, so they were not so fast.
In the meantime, at least two boats on port tack were behind us but pointing a little higher and were gaining to leeward of us. I was looking over my shoulder feeling stuck behind this boat and thinking that I had to get into clear air quickly. I wanted to tack to stbd side, but I was worried that the 2 boats behind were very close and I didn't want to cause the confrontation. But finally I decided we needed to tack. Just as I feared, our momentum had us moving forward slowly when the first boat was closing on us rapidly. I almost decided to just luff until they got by, but they steered toward our stern to go by very close. There was some yelling by somebody on the other boat and Sue started yelling because she was really afraid they were going to hit us. I try to tell her to just stay calm and don't yell, but she doesn't listen to me. The second boat that was close also ducked us without incident. In the end, the slower boat ahead of us and both of the boats that ducked us eventually rounded the windward mark ahead of us and stayed ahead of us for the rest of the race.
I talked to the skipper of the first boat that ducked us later and he just said it was all just part of the fun of it. He also said he thought it was a mistake on our part to tack because we eventually lost positions because of it. It seems to me that it is a little murky as to what constitutes a clean tack that doesn't interfere with another boat. We were on stbd and advancing pretty slowly coming out of the tack. The first boat had to change direction, but the skipper said they didn't have to do anything drastic and he seemed to be fine with it, especially because it worked out for him, I suppose!
The wind was strong, about 18 to 20 knots, we had our smaller jib and reefed main and we were struggling with being over-powered ourselves. The port tack waves really seemed to slam us, the stbd side waves seemed to hit us a little less. There didn't seem to be any favored side of the course and I can't say that there really were any shifts. That said, all boats seemed to head to the right side of the course to find the lay line rather than going up the middle making extra tacks necessary. I know that I hurt our position by tacking to the left on starboard. I probably should have been a little more patient but at the time I felt a little panicky about getting out of the wind shadow of the boat ahead of us!
About half-way thru the race we were closer to the middle of the fleet. We rounded the leeward mark right on the heels of a larger boat and there were more than a few boats behind us. As we were following the larger boat upwind on port tack, we could not escape the foul air. We could not point higher to get by them and we were closing on them as we footed. But as we got right into their foul air, we also couldn't get by them to leeward because we slowed down in the foul air. The boat ahead of us was overpowered and was having a lot trouble with weather helm, so they were not so fast.
In the meantime, at least two boats on port tack were behind us but pointing a little higher and were gaining to leeward of us. I was looking over my shoulder feeling stuck behind this boat and thinking that I had to get into clear air quickly. I wanted to tack to stbd side, but I was worried that the 2 boats behind were very close and I didn't want to cause the confrontation. But finally I decided we needed to tack. Just as I feared, our momentum had us moving forward slowly when the first boat was closing on us rapidly. I almost decided to just luff until they got by, but they steered toward our stern to go by very close. There was some yelling by somebody on the other boat and Sue started yelling because she was really afraid they were going to hit us. I try to tell her to just stay calm and don't yell, but she doesn't listen to me. The second boat that was close also ducked us without incident. In the end, the slower boat ahead of us and both of the boats that ducked us eventually rounded the windward mark ahead of us and stayed ahead of us for the rest of the race.
I talked to the skipper of the first boat that ducked us later and he just said it was all just part of the fun of it. He also said he thought it was a mistake on our part to tack because we eventually lost positions because of it. It seems to me that it is a little murky as to what constitutes a clean tack that doesn't interfere with another boat. We were on stbd and advancing pretty slowly coming out of the tack. The first boat had to change direction, but the skipper said they didn't have to do anything drastic and he seemed to be fine with it, especially because it worked out for him, I suppose!
The wind was strong, about 18 to 20 knots, we had our smaller jib and reefed main and we were struggling with being over-powered ourselves. The port tack waves really seemed to slam us, the stbd side waves seemed to hit us a little less. There didn't seem to be any favored side of the course and I can't say that there really were any shifts. That said, all boats seemed to head to the right side of the course to find the lay line rather than going up the middle making extra tacks necessary. I know that I hurt our position by tacking to the left on starboard. I probably should have been a little more patient but at the time I felt a little panicky about getting out of the wind shadow of the boat ahead of us!
Last edited: