6/18 Sailstice Day

Photo Latitude / Rob
© 2011 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Also a day of second chances.  JetStream did the HDA race that wasn't meant to be as I was supposed to be in Catalina after sailing the Coastal Cup on 'Invisible Hand'.  But we had to retire from that race back on Wednesday, which meant I got to come back and spend the weekend at home.  A bit of a disappointment, as the results are in for the Coastal Cup and I think we would have had a good chance to compete for first overall.  We shall try again.

Instead, I took JetStream out on Saturday to race on the HDA Sailstice Race with Andrew and Kristen.  It shaped up to be a great day with good breeze.   Our class is still a little weak, this time we had two other boats show up, one Flying Tiger 10 and the 1D35.  We had a clean start (easy with only 3 boats on the line) though I lined up a little early and ended on the pin end of the line when I wanted to be on the boat end.  I wanted the leeward lane as the bigger boats can point a bit better than us and squeeze us out if we are to windward.

The course had us starting by the Berkley Pier, up to Harding, down to R4, back up to Harding, with the finish on the leeward side of Treasure Island, around 14 miles.  With a strong flood of around 3 knots, the upwind legs felt like they lasted forever and not playing the current would result in immediate loses.  The 3 boats stayed pretty much in sync for the first upwind leg, with the 1D35 leading the way followed by us and the FT10.  The 1D35 had about a 300 yard lead on us when they went for the layline to Harding.  But they went too early getting into the main of the current and loosing their lead by the time we got to the mark.   We rounded first, with both the 1D35 and the Tiger on our stern.   We had a clean set and were off to the races with the big kite.  We build a bit of a lead, but a navigation error had us loose it.  We had been headed towards the wrong mark and by the time we realized and got back to the right mark we were following instead of leading.   Luckily we were still in contact with our fleet, now just behind the Tiger with the 1D35 on the lead again.   Rounding Pt. Blunt I thought I found a bit of a counter current and stayed out a bit longer.  Big mistake... by the time we tacked back towards Angel Island we had dropped back 50 yards and were too high to get on the favorable current.  The 1D35 stretched away from us, but we stayed in contact with the Tiger.  A good layline call had us catching the Tiger by the time we rounded Harding and we were off again to the finish.  A great downwind run, never dropping under 13 knots and hitting 18 a few times.   When we started the run, the red kite of the 1D35 was already past Alcatraz, so we had a lot of ground to make if we had any chance of making the time to correct over the 1D35 (about 3 minutes).

As we approached Treasure Island we saw the 1D35 drop their kite at the tip of the Island, but there was still another 1/2 mile reach from the tip of the island to the finish.  That was the opportunity we needed.  We kept our kite up all the way to the finish, and crossed the line just under 3 minutes behind the 1D35.  The results aren't yet in, but we think we got them in corrected time.

It was Kristen's first day on the boat.  Though a bit cold on the long upwind legs, she had a big grin on her face induced by the fast downwind runs, even when taking some water head on :)  Both Photoboy and the Latitude38 boats were out on Saturday, so I expect to add some photos to this blog in the next couple of days.

Today, spending Father's Day with the family and awaiting the arrival of the in-laws.  Time to go get some meat for the grill...