Driving up to the boat, I already knew the wind would be heavy from the west or northwest. When I got to the marina I looked out on the river and saw the Venturi effect in the middle of the river, while I stood in a calm area. I knew the wind would be from the NW with some good velocity.
We hoisted sail on the west side of the river since it seemed like the lightest spot to safely hoist the main. I did not want to hoist it near the start area as it was much windier out by H. We sailed to the start area, but skipped the usual upwind practice. In this breeze, I wanted to minimize the beating the boat would take.
As the start neared, some dope was sitting on 72. It caused a little confusion, but everything turned out OK. The pin (port) end of the line was favored, but not very skewed, so I knew we could run the line on starboard and get off the line. That is exactly how our start went.
We were near two other boats at the start and it took everything I had to hold Jazz back to avoid being early. She wanted to run and I did everything I could to keep her below the line until the signal went off. Once the starting time passed (we could not hear the horn from the pin), Jazz shot off like an angry horse out of a starting gate.
Everything felt weird on the boat this evening. I cannot explain fully, but things just felt off. On a night when her crew was not in its usual groove, Jazz took matters into her own hands. She raced upwind at speeds I rarely see. Part of this can be attributed to having Samalot marine do an excellent job cleaning the bottom. The rest was just the boat hitting her designed groove. She was built to sail shorthanded in 20 knots of breeze and it showed. Normally we do between 4.6 and 5.0 knots upwind. My knot meter is about .4 - .5 knots slow, so the numbers are relative. On this night, I could not find a groove myself, but Jazz kept racing ahead at a staggering 5.5 knots. I cannot explain it. Her jib had a luff in it, the main had a nice bubble, yet there she was having one of the best upwind legs of the season.
Everything changed when we tacked for 26. I struggled to get her back near 5.0 knots. Only once or twice did she cross over 5.0 knots. Whatever happened after the start was clearly gone. Some of it I attribute to the waves coming from straight ahead on this board. Having been handed a two minute lead by that amazing burst out of the gate, we just rode Jazz for the rest of the course to a quick finish. I was very happy to have Jazz tonight. She picked us up and took us to a nice finish.
After the race, the wind was still up and we sailed until sunset. Around sunset, the wind was back down to 6-8 knots, so we reluctantly headed in for pizza. I missed it by 30 minutes, but still enjoyed a couple of cold slices before heading home. Since I am reading the wonderful book Seabiscuit, I made the analogy on the ride home that Jazz was my swift courser, instead of an inanimate boat.
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