Spring Race #8

Wednesday 6/30/2010 Beautiful night. Shifty NW breeze from 6-18 knots. Current ebbing hard over 1 knot. All boats sailed up to B to 24 and back to H. We had a rare beautiful night. The Hudson has many nice evenings, but lately, Wednesday nights have brought foul weather. Tonight there was breeze and sun. The temperature was a very comfortable 75 degrees. We left the marina and immediately put up the main. We did this to acclimate ourselves to the wind and figured we could sail to the start. IT also helps to be getting feedback from the sails as soon as possible. Right away we noticed the puffs and the direction changes. Once at the line, we found it to be a little on the short side. The boat end seemed favored. Some people thought the line was more skewed, but I thought it to be within 20 degrees of perpendicular. I was disappointed with the call for the course. Going into B with a foul current can be very difficult. The wind is shifty and the current is ripping through that part of the river. There were some nice courses that went to 26 and then to K or G that would have provided two upwind legs and kept us away from Stony Point. The start was uneventful. Bugaboo and Jazz were on the line and Bugaboo was above us. It was a great start for them as their speed allowed them to get on top of us. I was a bit early, so I ended up slowing down at the start. We ended up tacking twice and continued to the west side of the river. This seemed to pay off a bit as we were about 2 minutes behind Bugaboo at our next cross. This time, they went left and had a big gain. We should have stayed closer to the West shore than we did. The current killed us in the middle of the river. We rounded the mark over 4 minutes behind Bugaboo. With the knowledge that the middle of the river was where the current was ripping, we immediately winged the jib and head back to the middle to get a boost this time. That worked out well as we closed the gap to well under 3 minutes by the time we rounded 24. We were close hauled most of the way to the finish. The current was sweeping boats down river, so most boats stayed high on their course. We finished close enough to Bugaboo to correct over them. We then kept sailing upwind and enjoyed the nice evening. As we continued up river, we saw a pack of C2 boats that were close to B, but not quite able to get around. The shifty and dieing breeze and the strong current conspired against these boats. They just do not have enough VMG to make any progress into the strong current. Then I saw Summer Wind. Despite the difficult conditions around B, somehow Summer Wind made it around. At least 6 boats were unable. It was awesome seeing them break through and glide with the current down to 24. Unfortunately, sailboat racing is not fair to all boats. Summer Wind was about 20-25 minutes from finishing when the time expired. They will not get credit for beating those other boats around the mark. I would just like to recognize their great race. It will not be reflected in the standings and most boats were already back in their slips and unable to see how Summer Wind did something no other small boat did that night. They rounded B. With the current pushing them, they had a huge lead over the rest of the C2 boats that never made it around B. If they were given an extra half and hour (not allowed), they would have beat half their fleet. They will be scored OTL, but they sailed a great race. I dedicate this blog to Summer Wind and the great race they sailed. At least this will be the one place where their accomplishment will be recognized. No real rules issues tonight. The main take away from the evening is that the current is the most important factor in the northern part of our race area. We played shifts and lost ground upwind. We then went out of our way to get into the favorable current downwind and made big gains.