Low Achievable Goals...someone said that was the key to happiness.
As we were assembling for the race Saturday morning, I asked everyone what their goals for the weekend were. Not falling in was one, beating Firefly was another, (not sure that is low achievable). My goal was to have a fully functioning boat at the end of the regatta and be ONE of the competitive boats.
When I look at the entry list of a Moore regatta I can usually figure out who that is going to be. I was hoping to be in the top 5 based on who entered but knew we had a chance to do better than that if things went our way.
I was really happy to see the forecast for 8-17 knots of wind which meant we were going to be in our #2 all day. Our #2 is a 140 and combined with my flat main it is a pretty fast set up. Plan was to start near the boat end of line with people around that I was confident we could get away from. The RC did a good job making the pin slightly favored and that drew a lot of the top boats to the leeward end of line. That left us space to get going to the right pretty soon after the start as one does in Santa Cruz.
Getting off the line well in all 3 races that day was key to having clear lanes and no one tacking on us. I use the controversial Vakros Atlas 2 device as my instrument and starting timer and trust the accuracy of the line pings. I cannot read the numbers on the device from where I sit but I can see the LED lights displayed at the top of the screen. There are 10 lights each representing 1' off the line as you approach the line they go off until you are on the line when they go white then red when you are over. Never been much of an instrument guy but this thing is cool, I have had it for a couple of years and been very impressed with its capabilities cannot say enough good things about it.
The second race was the traditional romp up to Natural Bridges and once again Pegasus jumped out to the lead position. We tacked before the kelp at lighthouse point and they crossed ahead and then tacked inside and ahead of us holding us out on Starboard longer than we would have preferred. The right is still favored up past the point and often that is where gains are made. After Pegasus tacked back to port we followed and were able to close the gap on them and actually had to duck them at the next cross. I knew the next cross we would have the Starboard advantage and slightly ahead. They tacked in a good lee bow position but had a bad tack and we were able to get alongside them about a boat length to weather. Ideal tuning opportunity to see if we can hang with them in equal coinditions. We were close enough I could hear Tom Lewin calling out the difference in our boats and trim, at one point he said we were higher and faster! It is rare when that boat says that about us so I asked him to repeat it so the crew could hear it again. We were having a bit too much fun sailing with them that we forgot about Scarlett and Firefly working up the inside. We left our buddies outside and went back inside to cover the other boats. This allowed Pegasus to get away and lead around the mark and we rounded close behind with Scarlett, Firefly was just a few boats back. We were trying a 20 year old North kite and although it had good shape the fabric had lost its stiffness and was a bit spongy. We let Firefly get inside of us thinking we had better pressure outside, we did not and they surged ahead just off the Lighthouse. We managed to hold on to 3rd and remained in top of the fleet overall tied with Firefly.
The 3rd race of the day we just did what we had been doing and started at pace near the boat. The Vakros said we were close to the line but not over, white lights at the gun! There were a couple of boats called over and my crew was concerned we might have been, did not hear our number on the radio so we kept sailing. Pretty typical Santa Cruz race go right if you can and wait for your opportunity to tack back. Pegasus continued to look unbeatable and added another picket to their fence winning all 3 races that day. Firefly was 2nd again in this race and we followed with a 3rd. Heading to the bar with 8 points and 3rd overall 5 points off the lead.
Sunday was a bit lighter and we started with our #1 as did most of the fleet. This time the pin was a bit more favored and a majority of the fleet was down there. We were doing a late approach on port and saw room at the boat behind the last starboard tack boat which I think was Scarlett. We sheeted in and tacked to starboard just behind the committee boat and crossed line a few seconds late but were able to tack immediately to port. The clusterfck at the leeward end took Pegasus and Firefly out and we ended up getting launched into first place and sailed away from the fleet and all they had going on. At the end of that race were technically in first overall but with one more race to go we needed Pegasus to get 6th in last race and do well ourselves. The wind came up slightly in 2nd race and we changed down to the #2 again. Several people stayed with#1 which was probably the right call. This start I found myself sandwiched between Pegasus to leeward and Mooregasm to weather with Firefly just in front of Pegasus slowing them down. We held our lane until we were clear to tack back to the right, there were already a few going that way. Ichi Ban had gotten to the right first and as they were coming back on Starboard they approached Mooregasm and Scarlett on port overlapped with each other Mooregasm did not see Ichiban until last second and crash tacked forcing Scarlett to tack this blocked anyone else from gaining an advantage on that side. Paramour was leading the race and we found ourselves in 2nd just behind and had a pretty good gap to the next boat. Couldn't catch Rowan on the run and he covered us really well on the beat, not ever giving me a clean lane. As we rounded the top mark we started looking for Pegasus and saw they were once again deep in the fleet but managed to work their way back to 6th or 7th. Nothing we can do about them now, just hope all my buddies will make it hard for them to move up. Then it happened, we finished second and waited to see if we did enough to seal the deal. Sure enough my pals came through and held Pegasus to 6th and after several attempts at math we figured we had won by 1 point.
Can't thank my crew enough for their performance, John Mellnik, Karen Loutzenheiser, Jack Kisiling, Ximena Greatorex and special mention to the Vakros Atlas 2 device for getting us on the start line.
