WNR 6/16/09

After 3 consecutive weeks of canceled Wednesday night racing, last night we were blessed with a strong easterly breeze and cool temperatures in the mid 60's. Under a steelhead sky that was full of foreboding clouds, and reefs in all our mains, the fleet set off in 15-20 kts of breeze for the first mark. The beat was pretty shifty in both velocity and direction. Tim Williams made it to the mark well in first place and with a pretty smooth spinnaker set, he had a strong lead. We traded places with Brian and TC and somehow managed to pass both of them from behind to round the mark in 2nd. I think this was due in no small part to the wicked good scramblas on my crew who scrambled back and forth always to the windward rail. With a crew of 9, we had plenty of beef to keep her upright. Also, I had a cracka of a main trimma in Rachel Meinhold who was workin the sheet and the travla like a masta.

After the mark rounding, we all turned downwind for the run back to the haaaba. Brian and I elected to forego using the kite by choice. TC elected to forego it because he had a little shrimping expedition during the beat and I'm not sure whether his kite or his crew was more damaged. Anyway, he also decided to forego using his kite, so the 3 of us were in a white sail race for the can, and we rounded in the same order: me, Brian, and TC. Brian was hot on our tail at the mark and went higher, but we were able to scrape him off by the time we got to the harbor can. However, he went high on us again and somehow (we could not figure out how for the life of us!) he kept being just a little faster than we were. He managed to get an overlap on us and was entitled to room at the bulkhead (a subject about which I had some discussion with one of his crew who I later realized was Geoff Becker the sailing coach at Washington College who knows a lot more about rules than I do...) but somehow he slowed down immediately after establishing the overlap and decided to change tactics and go low. In the end, we had a close photo finish with Me narrowly nipping Brian for 2nd and Brian narrowly getting TC for 3rd. I think we all finished within about 15 seconds of each other. But you can see for yourselves as complete results are available at:

http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/uploads/results/2009_Wednesday_Night_Races-2009/2009_Wednesday_Night_Races_Series_2.html

Congratulations to Tim Williams on his win!

Division: Alberg 30 (8 boats) (top)

Pos	Sail	Boat	Skipper	1	Total Points	Pos
1	244	LinGin	Nurco, Virginia	1	1.00	1
2	287	Calliope	Bergquist, John	2	2.00	2
3	288	L'Espirit	Palmer, Brian	3	3.00	3
4	247	Argo	Williams, T.C.	4	4.00	4
5T	152	Andante	pipkin, mark	5/DNC	5.00T	5T
5T	197	Laughing Gull	Adams, Jonathan	5/DNC	5.00T	5T
5T	308	Asylum	Adelman, Allan	5/DNC	5.00T	5T
5T	484	Second-2-Nun	Bluntschli, Ralph	5/DNC	5.00T	5T

Here are some pix:

Julia manages the winged-out jib with Brian P over her shoulder.

Not a view I often get...TC so far behind me I have trouble reading his sail #. Note crack main trimmer Rachel Meinhold keeping an eye on the competition for me.

2 of my wicked good scramblas keeping the boom where it's supposed to be.