High Numbers, Good Battles
The forecast for today was light winds. It was a bit more windy than expected, so we enjoyed it. There were about 20 boats on the water, although only 17 signed on for the first race and 19 for the second.
I had really good first start. I was on starboard with many others on port, so I was almost first off the line. Joe, was close behind me. After the first tack, I started falling back. At some point, I realised that I was pointing too high and I was loosing speed, but it was too late. I had already lost too much ground. On the first run, I sailed through a shadow on the right hand side of the lake and I made a mental note, not to go through there again. On the following laps I sailed through the middle of the lake and it proved a good practice. On the beats, I was gaining on the boats around me, I was in the middle of the fleet. On the last beat I was 9th and I was getting close to 8th. Unfortunately I dropped the mainsheet and by the time I grabbed it again, I had lost another place. So, I finished 10th.
On the second race, the start line was too short and it was quite gusty, so it was a bit tricky to keep the boat still. My start was not that great but I managed to get it out of my mind and concentrate on the race. I was battling all the time either with Tom, Chris or Steve. It was really interesting and we were really battling it out. I was enjoying myself quite a lot. I was heading for mark 7 where the race officer had placed the committee boat for the finish. We were supposed to round mark 7 on port. That meant that we would round the mark and then cross the line. In that case, though, we would be crossing the line on a run. I went for it anyway. I was ahead of Tom, Chris and Steve and I had layed the mark. Then I saw the boat in front of me crossing the line on the beat, effectively the wrong way around the mark. So I headed for there, but then I was loosing ground, because Tom, Chris and Steve where to me leeward and where sailing straight to the line. So we all arrived together on the line, and Tom beat me to it by a couple of feet. Chris was a couple of feet behind me and Steve about 1 length.
It was one of the closest finishes I have experienced. I have to say that I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t mind that Tome beat me.
After lunch we did some work on the club boats. We sorted out the new boat, and we made sure that all the rigging in the other boats is OK and that they can be rigged and de-rigged quickly and easily by new members. We also replaced the joints on two tillers/extensions that were broken.