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| The Great Vallejo Race at Vallejo Yacht Club | May 2 - 3 |
| Story |
| Saturday - From Steve Katzman on Dianne
It all came together for DIANNE: well prepared, light on crew weight, all excess weight off the boat. Got a good start, won a lane and rounded in first three at weather mark. We picked a middle lane after the mark, letting 3 boats go high and the remainder went low. We close reached, kept hiking and trimming the main and #3. When we had a good angle to clear the Long Wharf we set on hot reach angle. Abby, Tequila and Peaches reached up from below us and we had a close race going. Kept left of our pack and went east of Red Rock, thanks to Jarian. Under the San Rafael bridge we continued to keep west of our pack for better wind and better flood. After The Brothers we jibed on shifts and soaked into the deeper water skirting the ship channel. We stayed away from other boats as we played thru them and eeked out a little lead from our pack, always covering Abby and Tequila. About Pt Pinole we caught new wind with a fast angle to the Napa River. Tequila and Dianne got this new pressure first and opened up on our fleet. At the Green 1 we lead Tequila by about 200 yards. But Tequila put up a #1for the river and we kept our #3. Big mistake on our part and they ate up our lead quickly. We cat and moused them and luckily finished in front of them. They would have won if there was another 1/4 mile of race track. Sunday - From Mathieu Krogstad Tequila Mockingbird (Tequila) had a decent start (and surprised more boats weren't fighting for the boat) and were right behind Peaches in the lead leaving the starting line. Used a slower boat to windward as a pick and manage to roll over the top of peaches before G1. Coming out of the Napa River and heading along the seawall, we traded leads a few times with Peaches on the way out of the river and entering the San Pablo bay. We worked the seawall hard at first and it paid....the boat coming out on starboard would cross infront of the boat on port heading into the seawall and then the lead would shrink or even reverse on the next cross. Really tight racing. As the water got deeper there was early flood along the seawall and it no longer paid. Should have cut across sooner to the eastern shores of SP bay. As the wind piped up we went to the flattener with our Genoa still up which was a very nice gear and allowed us to live with the Genoa for longer. Still leading Peaches at this point and working the left hand shallows pretty hard (with my crew on the GPS mentioning something about lots of rocks and could we tack soon!) but getting relief and, unfortunately, noticing Wylie making steady gains sailing very fast and very flat. As we approached Pinole Point we changed down to the #3 and sailed a little low and slow. A real moment of inattention on my part meant we didn't do a good job of staying between the competition and the mark. Wylie had been closing the distance dramatically and closed in and went above. Peaches too. We lost them both inside at the mark. A little annoyed but knew there was still alot of racetrack and many tactical decisions up ahead we kept rolling and looked for opportunities. Peaches, still carrying their Genoa which amazed us given the 20 knot breeze with puffs higher, went across the bay on a long port tack. We stayed left with Wylie till about 5 miles before the Brothers and went hard right to get north and cover Peaches. We were still ahead of Peaches but felt Wylie and some others in the fleet were looking very good on the left and wished we had stuck with them. We then made our biggest mistake of the event: we went back left to consolidate on the boats we felt were looking good which meant crossed the teeth of the flood twice. Big losses here. Should have picked a side and stuck with it. Playing the middle so rarely pays. We tacked back onto port and aimed at the Brothers in the relief having not really committed to a side and eating way too much current and tacking too much. Didn't realize how bad it was till we saw Wylie who had gone all the way across to the north end of the bay on the layline to the finish and miles in front. Our position on Peaches had deteriorated significantly but I felt we might be able to cross them. We couldn't and tacked to leeward below the layline to the finish. Close to the finish we tacked in to try to win the race to the layline but they were just in front and finished 8 seconds behind them. Great race with Peaches and Wylie. Wylie finished over 5 min 30 secs ahead of both Peaches and Tequila which was very impressive since they had to come from behind to do it.... They probably made up at least 7-8 mins on the race course! Congrats to Dan P and the Wylie crew. It was great to see a bunch of new boats out racing very competitively and such tight racing all around. Lots of lead changes and battles fought out between the boats. Great times and can't wait for the next one. Sunday - From Steve Katzman on Dianne My Sunday story is summed up that after Pt Pinole I went into survival mode and still only got passed by two boats for a sixth place. (Dianne) we had a good start and race out the always problematic Vallejo River. Shifted gears immediately at Green1 to flattener, maximum backstay, jib leads back and soldiered on with the #1. Going to weather very well, we dug into the seawall and found no relief from flood. So we went across to the Davis Point oil dock. Going across we changed to the #3. Good sail change with hanked on sails, didn't loose much ground and now we were pointing like a bird dog into the obnoxious flood. Took us 4 tacks to get by the tanker on the pier and by then we were slowly catching Peaches and Tequila. The ever powerful W. Coyote was coming into the mix there, along with Libra and Andale. Finally clearing the oil tanker we tucked into the unknown shallows of east shore San Pablo Bay. We found good relief from the flood, used the depth sounder and kept our eyes peeled for rocks and broken pilings. That was scary but it payed off. WC got by us some where in there. We continued to gain on you guys. Then it started to get very windy and we hit early ebb tide waves. Taking lots of water across the boat and getting wet. We also were getting lifted so we went bow down enough to clear Pt Pinole marker and made more ground on Peaches, you and WC. Kinda thought the lead pack might make a mistake and go inside Pt Pinole but you're too smart for that. Clearing Pt Pinole we were in at least 20 kts of wind and vicious waves. Hypothermia was setting in. We tacked onto stbd to tuck more into the east and change the lazy jib sheet to outboard track. That outboard track helped. Tacked a few more times and had some near falls and disasters in getting across the boat. The waves were very bad on stbd tack, not so bad port so I told everyone to huddle down, we were in survival mode, and we held port tack all the way across to China Camp/McNear's Quarry. We tacked onto stbd and the waves were again very bad. The red boat, Big Bang, caught us there and we traded a few tacks with them to the finish. Kudos to MaryAnn of Big Bang for bringing Marcia and Mike B on to become competitive. |
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