The regular crew of Andrew and Rob were out for the race as well. The top move of the day was Rob perfectly executing a body drag. He had previously threatened with a scuba diver back roll, but this time he would execute what I will call the 'Rob Swing'. From the leeward rail, enter the water with your feet towards the bow. Making sure the boat is traveling in excess of 8 knots, while maintaining a strong grip on whatever is available, submerge yourself chest deep. The force of the water will swing your legs under you and back towards the stern of the boat with sufficient force to enable you to get one leg over the rail. If you are strong enough to hang on and any of the crew is willing to lend a hand you will be back on the boat in less than 5 seconds, fully refreshed and without slowing the boat much.
Back to racing...
The day started with a bit of a rush with only minutes to spare to make it to the warning signal on time. Decent breeze at the start. We started with our new #4 for the short upwind leg to Blackaller. We played the shore side tightly and were the first mono to round, one of the big cats had passed us already. We immediately set our A2 for the run to Little Harding (there was a bit of South in the breeze) and we stretched away from the rest of the monohull fleet. By the time we hit Little Harding all the big three cats had screamed right past even with us doing low to mid teens. The cats were flying.
We couldn't hold the kite on the leg from Little Harding to Blossom, and in a rushed douse shrimped it momentarily. So we white sailed reached to the mark. We rounded and set up our Code 0 to try to stay high and in the favorable current. We stretched a little more with Outsider and Wild 1 chasing behind. We had to go back to white sails as the wind increased a bit through the slot., but past Angel Island it was back to the A2 for the downwind run to the Petaluma Channel. The wind lightened up a bit and we started getting a bit concerned with Outsider and Wild1. We ended up cutting the lee of Red Rock too close and gave some of the lead up. On the remainder of the run in 12 - 15 we managed to stay in front of Outsider.
On the way back up San Pablo Bay we headed to the deep water for the beginning of the ebb. We mostly did a loose cover on the boats behind us and built up our lead. It was a very pleasant upwind leg with the sun out and enough breeze to fully power up the boat, now with the full jib up. We played the right hand side after the Brothers and that paid huge while Outsider and Wild 1 stayed on the Richmond side. We were able to crack off early on our way to TI. With not much of a wind hole behind Angel Island we were able to go across West of the Southampton shoals with plenty of breeze as we entered the slot. It was probably low to mid 20s with a decent chop from the ebb.
We had a couple of trimaran pass us in this leg, they were fully powered on and moving fast.
We stayed relatively close to TI as the ebb was now building. We had plenty of breeze as we made our way to mark 34 in the South Bay. Set our A5 for the run to 2NAS, by this point we had built a decent lead. As we were making our way back to SC1 we could see both Outsider and Wild1 setting kites as they rounded 34. Another A2 set for the run to and down the Estuary. Really nice breeze as well down the Estuary, almost caught back a few of the tris in front of us. Didn't catch the tris, but still good for the monohull gun.
Great day out on the water, a little sore today.
