Detroit NOOD 2010

by Sarah Deeds, Lorax


Lorax was sailing with a new Santa Cruz mainsail that appeared to be of the lightest permissible cloth and no full length top batten. It had a flattening reef point, which we used for part of the first beat the third day. We started with an older, lightweight number 1, but switched to a newer, more standard one on the second day.

The first day it was 0-8 knots and very shifty. We got in three races, with mixed results for Lorax.  We aced the first start (big shift left the boat end heavily favored and we nailed it,) and managed to hold onto the lead that race, although we couldn't extend. Our next start was mediocre, and the third we were buried under a Catalina 27 who refused to head up, and were clawing our way back all race. It didn't seem like we had any speed that day, only managed to get ahead due to good tactical calls by Paul and good starts. We sailed through a cloud of small flies on the way home which made the trip rather unpleasant. 

We unloaded a few tools and extra snacks off the boat for the next day of racing, including the field glasses and peanuts, which elicited many complaints when their absence was noticed. 

The second day we only got in one race after bobbing around until 3:30 pm. We finally had decent breeze (about 6-8 knots again) We got a decent start and managed to pull securely into the lead after Paul made a good call on the first downwind leg. Most of the fleet jibed into the middle of the course and we kept going to the right side, away from the traffic.  It seemed like we had much cleaner air over there. There were not any notable shifts and we ended up solidly in the lead by the leeward mark and managed to stay there until the finish. 

At the start of Day Three Lorax was in third place, a few points out of second and a few more points out of first. Mika was in first place, and Das Boot in second. It was stormy and gusting to 30 that morning, but by the start of the first race it had calmed down considerably, and we switched to the #1 by the second beat. We were in second place behind Airforce around the windward mark, but were the last to jibe onto port towards the finish, a costly mistake. We lost Mika and almost lost Das Boot, who both jibed sooner.  The first race had a photo finish with Airforce in the lead and Mika, Lorax, and Das Boot finishing seconds later, overlapped in that order.  Going into the last race we were one point behind Das Boot and five behind Mika. We assumed that we had little chance of passing Mika, so we focused on beating Das Boot. Much to our glee, Mika missed a big shift on the first beat and put herself solidly in last place. We were second around the first mark, behind Air force. Das Boot was somewhere in the middle. By the end of the second beat, Das Boot had clawed her way back to third, ducking us on port just before the weather mark. She made a move to go over top of us after the mark. We  jibed away rather than fight her high. We were still neck in neck when we reconverged at the leeward gate, but a short way up the beat we had her by a few lengths again. I think that by tacking early at the mark they sailed into bad air from all the boats coming down wind. A righty on the final beat put us solidly ahead of Airforce and Das Boot to our left, but Piper got by us on the inside. We got inside at the weather mark, had a better spinnaker set, and managed to get by Piper to win the race.  With Mika unable to work her way out of last and Das Boot in 4th, we won the regatta with 16 points. Mika and Das Boot tied with 18 points, Das Boot winning the tiebreaker. 

There were notably fewer motorboats out on Lake Saint Clair than I ever remember on a weekend in June.  This made sailing in the light air much more pleasant.