Your comcast account must be acting up again. I sent out a wrap-up on
Tuesday. Well, for those who did not get it the first time...here you
go. Lots of fun out there.....
Hard to believe it is actually winter when you are sailing in
conditions like last Saturday. Mid 60's and 10 knots of breeze, what
else could you ask for. Those of you who didn't make it out, you are
really missing out on the fun!
The first few fleets got off with a nice beat with the wind coming
straight over the temporary mark H of the Berkeley circle. Then the
wind shifted slightly right, making the committee boat end pretty
favored. With about 2 minutes to go we could already see our fleet
bunching up at the committee end. But off to the left was the early
flood and much better breeze. The choice on Moxie was to be the left
most boat and put the pedal to the medal. We were about a boat length
off the line when the gun sounded, but we had clear wind and the
better wind was not far out in front of us. Dianne and Mirage were to
weather of us and looking really good for awhile. I think they got a
bit nervous and deiced to tack on to port early to check in with the
fleet. We choose to keep going for another minute and when we tacked
on to port, the entire fleet was pretty far back and to Leeward of
us. As we continued up the course on Port the wind continued to shift
right and we got headed down closer to the fleet. Moxie ended up
rounding about 6-8 boat lengths ahead of Mirage. Motorcycle Irene
(MI) managed to salvage a horrendous start and punched out in third
for the first weather rounding.
These positions stayed the same the entire run, as with the big wind
shift the passing lanes were few and far between. As we rounded the
leeward mark, MI had gained some ground on Mirage and was trying to
figure out a way around them. Moxie just kept sailing fast and tried
to cover as much as possible. As we left the committee boat to Port
on the second beat, we noticed a bit more wind off to the left again.
We decided to tack for it, while giving up the Stbd side advantage to
MI. It paid off and at the next crossing, we still had a good lead on
the fleet. As we approached the top mark again, we noticed that MI
had used their speed to get around Mirage, and were in second place
as they rounded the top mark.
The run remained the same for the top of the fleet with a few boats
from the first 3 classes starting to now get in our way. Moxie still
held about the same lead at the bottom mark rounding, but Mirage
seemed to be reeling MI back in. We crossed the finish line and took
our first midwinter gun in a long time. As we looked back to see how
things were going between 2nd and 3rd, we saw MI having to duck
Mirage's transom. Unfortunately, Mirage was giving up the Stbd
advantage, and the committee boat was slightly favored, so MI beat
Mirage to the finish line but only by a few seconds. Magic Bus
crossed in 4th with Xena close on their heels in 5th.
All in all, it was a beautiful day of racing with some tough
competition.
The next event is the doublehanded 3 bridge fiasco. This is not an
event you want to miss! Last year we had 18 boats out there for this
fun event. Let's get out there and have some more fun!
Cheers,
Jason
Moxie #83
:: Hey Jason --
::
:: So, you have to write a story about last weekend, right?
:: Just because Will didn't do one, doesn't let you off the
:: hook. If you write one, perhaps it will shame Will into
:: writing his....:-)
::
:: Anyway congrats, good sailing....
::
:: Mark
