Sailing & BBQ
Today was the Summer BBQ day, so we would do two races back to back in the morning and then eat. I was asked to help with the cooking, so I would had to drop the second race in order to start the preparations.
The forecast was for light wind, so I didn’t expect much excitement. I went to the start line, took my transits and 20 seconds to the start the race officer decided to move the committee boat! How ridiculous is this? So, I stayed further back from the line and I started on port, but I had a quite bad start. Corbin was just ahead of me with Charmian, Jay and Ben around me. On the first lap I approached the windward mark from the wrong side where it was very shifty. The RS200 fleet chose the other side which was more windy, so they sailed passed us as we were going from mark 2 to 1. With their spinnaker up they create a huge wind shadow that seriously messes you up.
Corbin was getting away and I was trying to keep everybody else behind me. At some point I realised that Tom was ahead of me and then later on Charmian managed to get ahead of me too. While I was battling with Jay and I saw Ben coming strong. So, on the last beat as I was on port, Jay was at my windward close to me, Ben was coming on starboard and he didn’t hail starboard until he was very close to me. It was a moment of panic in order to avoid a three boat collision. I lost focus because it was a very risky move. It was within his rights to do it, but I don’t like it when people take unnecessary risks with my boat. Mind you it was necessary for him to win, but we are not talking about 1st place but 10th.
Anyway, I was quite upset with that and couldn’t get it out of my mind. Very soon both Ben and Jay went ahead of me. It took me too long to get my head back on the race. Unfortunately it was too long to gain back both places I had lost. When I managed to clearly pass Jay, Ben was crossing the line. After I crossed the line I went to the committee boat and I told them that on the next race they shouldn’t move the line after the start sequence had started. I know it was a bit cheeky, but what they did was ridiculous.
I went in, de-rigged and covered Bubble. Then I went to get started with the BBQ. It was a nice social event. The food was nice, people were happy and afterwards quite a few went for a sail. The forecast for Wednesday is 10 knots, so it should be exciting.