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| Encinal Midwinter #2 at Encinal Yacht Club | January 17 |
| Story |
| What a great weekend it was to be out on the bay. And I am sure that is the same thing the other 20 boats that came out were thinking. Sunny skies, 5-10 knots of breeze and intense competition. At least that is how it looked on our boat and what I heard from several other boats that were out there. So if you missed it for some reason be sure to come out next month and get in on the fun.
This was our first weekend of racing with the newly named "Moxie" as some of you may have noticed. Josh Grass (Maximus) and myself decided to join forces to try to slow down those Donkeys, Irenes, and Baffets we so often see winning these races. I think we have a long way to go until we are at the same level as them, but someone was smiling down on us this weekend. I'll take luck over skill any day though. Since we were the winners of the second race I will comment on how it looked from our boat. I believe that Mr. Paxton is putting something together to talk about the first race since he scored yet another bullet in that one. The starting line seemed a bit more square versus the first race when the pin was pretty favored, so we decided to just get in clear air and try to go fast. That worked fairly well until Magic Bus managed to pinch up in front of us and steal our air. Knowing that clear air is key and that we wanted to go left, I immediately footed off under them to get back up to speed. Luckily for us it wasn't too long before Magic Bus decided to take to port to cover the boats on the right. We waited a bit and flopped over protecting the left but covering the fleet. As we worked our way up the course Motorcycle Irene was coming at us on starboard and appeared to be an issue. Just a few boat lengths from impact they decided to be nice and tacked on to Port safe to Leeward. So we were still in control of the Left and continued charging up the course. Somehow Chimo got some good shifts in the middle of the course and were ahead of us at the top mark by a good 4 or 5 boatlengths. There was also a slower boat from the Melges24 fleet that decided to sit on our air and Swamp Donkey managed to squeak in ahead of us at the mark. We had another great quick set and started working it downwind. Hot on our heels was Magic Bus, Baffett, and Motorcycle Irene. We slowly started reeling in Swamp and Chimo when Swamp decided to gybe and head towards the center of the course. We had been fortunate on the North side of the course all day and decided to stay right where we were. Luckily for us the pressure seemed to be better where we were even though the currents were against us. As we approached the bottom mark we were right on the heels of Chimo and managed to trade a few gybes and end up on the inside of him on starboard at the mark. We played that card and rounded the mark a few boat lengths ahead. From that point on we just covered the competition and continued sailing fast. Once you get in front it always seems easier to go fast. And in this fleet you have to keep the boat going fast or you will quickly get eaten up by the top dogs. All in all it was a great race for the first outing of Moxie. The only reason we were able to do so good was due to the flawless foredeck crew of ours (Chris Mitchell and Ronnie Pettersson). They had a perfect, quick set every time as well as nice clean douses at the leeward marks. And I was pushing it to the last second on the douses trying to utilize every ounce of speed available. When the front of the boat is helping you out like that it makes your life in the back of the boat much easier. The key things we concentrated on this weekend was: 1) staying in clear air, even if it means tacking an extra two times to get clear air. 2) moving the crew weight around in the puffs to keep a little bit of heel upwind, but not too much. That little bit of heel helps you point in the light stuff. This is crucial to be able to stay in your lane. 3) Picking pressure over current relief. This seemed to help us all day. It isn't always the way to go but something you should always be thinking about. JASON CROWSON |
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