The winds were light from the NE between 0 and 2 knots. A healthy WNW breeze kicked in around 19:00. Current was ebbing until 20:00 then flooding. All divisions sailed from H to D to 26 to H. The Full Moon race sailed H to 26 to 24 to H.
This night was a tough one. It was light from the NE as we headed out. I was ready to swim again, but it appeared the Race Marshall was going to start us no matter the wind speed. As we prepared for the sequence, our plans included anchoring at the line. A few boats ended up doing this.
As the time approached for the C start, I was way out of position. I ended up starting over one minute late. I came into the boat end on a reach, but the wind was so light that we had trouble making one knot through the water. With foul current, this was barely any progress over the ground. We heard of two C boats that got pushed into the RM. Half the other C boats either anchored or started very late.
We debated the start on our boat. Frank believed that the start was the right thing to do and I thought the RM should wait until there was a steady 2-3 knot wind. The RM said they measured 3 knots on the water, but we did not see that ourselves. It is a tough call, so I will post a survey and let’s get some anonymous opinions.
There was one boat left to race against in C shortly after the start since so many were stuck on the line or worse. We ended up well behind that boat during the light and variable part of the first leg. Then we looked to the West and saw the breeze coming on. We maneuvered the boat as best we could to head north. This brought us to the left (west) of our competition and we got the breeze first. They had a comfortable lead when the air finally reached them, but they decided to squander that lead and head up to engage us.
I try to be Mr. Mellow on Wednesday nights, but sometimes I just can’t get away from boat to boat situations. This boat wasted a lot of distance to get close to us. They were still ahead, but only a boat-length to leeward. We both sailed high for a while, then I made a drastic turn to leeward and went below them. I just wanted to get to the mark quickly. After a costly delay, the other boat sailed from over two boat lengths to windward back down to us. Now they had lost more distance and we were overlapped to leeward. It was quite a bit of good fortune for us to have this boat engage us from a commanding position and then switch positions and put us in the leeward spot.
We were moving ahead of them at this point. They were still overlapped when they called for room. I was amazed by this since we were a long way from the mark. I responded to them that we would start our stopwatch and time how long it took us to get to the mark. (To make this clear, the boat seemed to call for room at this point and we said that it was too early.) They were about to lose their overlap and we had no intention of giving them room after that. By the time we got to the mark, doing 5 knots, 75 seconds had passed. Let’s pause and do some math together. Keep in mind we were ahead, so the 3 boat-length circle uses our 28 feet as the boat-length.
5 knots = 8.44 feet per second
75 seconds * 8.44 = 633 feet
633/28 = 22.6 boat-lengths
28*3 = 84 feet = 3 boat-lengths = 10 seconds from circle to mark at 5 knots
I could be terribly wrong with what the other boat was trying to communicate, but it appeared that the boat was asking for room over 22 boat-lengths away. Sound crazy? It should, but it is not. I have lost this protest before. You would be amazed how fast 22 boat-lengths can turn into 3, or even 2 in the old days. Having that previous experience has taught me to start a stopwatch when a boat makes a hail for room. When you can give the protest committee a hard time, with your speed, things will be clear in the hearing. In this case, it was purely academic.
Back to racing, in those 22 boat-lengths we sailed to the mark, we added to our lead and there was no room issue with that boat. We rounded ahead of them and then tacked three times quickly to get on their air. I normally would not do this, but they engaged us, so I thought it best to get well ahead and avoid any further issues. We were over a minute ahead at 26 and cruised on down to the finish.
After finishing, we heard a boat that wanted to take a penalty. They did a 360. A 360 is used when you hit a mark. If the rules allow, you need to take a Two-Turns penalty (720) when accepting a penalty. Our rules say that boats need to acknowledge their foul and take a percentage penalty of their finishing place.
PENALTY SYSTEM: For infringement of a rule of Part 2, penalties will be as set forth in rule 44. If a scoring Penalty of 20% is taken, a yellow flag need not be flown and the decision to accept such penalty need not be made while racing. But the decision must be made before the convening of a protest hearing.
Click Here for Rule 44
Rule 44 talks about the Two-Turns penalty and says that a penalty can be a scoring penalty if specified in the sailing instructions. Our instructions seem to indicate that the scoring penalty is the one we use, although it could be argued that the instructions allow for either penalty.
Full Moon Race
Once the boats had finished sailing, we set the anchor and got ready to run the full moon race. We decided not to pick up the flags since the wind was up and the RM was still anchored. We rolled into a start at 19:55. The breeze was still good, but was beginning to fade. We executed the sequence and the 6 boats racing had a nice start.
The race looked pretty good until the wind dropped out about half way through. Four of the six boats finished. It was a nice evening as Genesis approached the line in light air. Here is a video of them coming into the finish with the full moon behind them.
There was a tight finished between Gusto and Zoom with Zoom just barely edging out Gusto by a few seconds. We then fired up the diesel and headed in.
On the way in, we had a large motor boat coming up from the south. The boat was to our port and they were heading 20 degrees to the starboard of our course. This was a collision course. I was hoping the captain would make a slight turn to take our stern, but he was not yielding. I was not positive we had the right of way, nor did I want to press the issue. Since the other captain was not yielding, I threw in a 360 before it got close. There is no pride in navigating at night. I did not know the other captain’s abilities, so I decided to take the drastic turn and make clear my intention of motoring behind him. He passed without incident and we made it back to the harbor.
Turns out I was right of way, but I did not need to sink my boat to prove a point. In case you need a quick refresher, click here.
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