THE CREW
Fore deck - Pam, Audrey, Mary Reilly (Mazza family friend visiting)
Main sheet - Susan
Winches - Steve and Jay
Tiller - Ron
Nansi still employed, Kathleen traveling Nova Scotia, Chris out west, Trevor and Adam sailing RS's.
THE RACE
The wind forecast was all over the place leading up to Wednesday but hours before the race settled into a forecast of 14 knots out of the south. They got it pretty close.
It was up and down a bit but we elected to go with the heavy #1. Good call. The course was an elongated buoys to port triangle with a short third leg, 4x around. All the usual suspects were out except Blue Streak who must have been off cruising. This race was critical to the outcome of the second series as it would determine 2nd, 3rd, and 4th position in the series. BS with 3 bullets already had first sewn up.
We got a good starboard tack start next to the committee boat with Amelia and Abra to leeward and Veloce behind (Amelia got the jug). We all held on to the port tack layline and tacked over when Veloce did. We rounded second behind Abra and bore off on a very broad reach. Veloce closed the gap and managed to gain an inside overlap and rounded the second mark first. We gave her lots of room so that when we rounded we were able to sneak our bow past her transom tight to the mark and get above her on the third leg and gain the inside overlap at the third mark so we rounded ahead again. We tacked to cover both Alpha Omega and Veloce and extended our lead at the second weather mark. We spayed ahead on the next two reaches and the pattern repeated for the third round. On the final beat we decided not to cover Veloce as she tacked after the mark and stayed on port tack to the starboard tack lay line thus eliminating two tacks on the beat. That decision may have been critical. We again rounded well ahead of Veloce and Alpha but got tangled in the wind shadow of some smaller boats which slowed us and Veloce gained again but not sufficient to gain an overlap. We rounded the second mark still comfortable ahead but less so and finished about 20 seconds ahead of Veloce, but owing her some time.
THE RACE
We won this race by 4 seconds over Veloce on corrected time and finished firmly in second with 9 points for the series, as it turned out only a single point behind Blue Streak.
Well done Circe Crew!!!
Skipper Ron