Another great day on Lake Monroe. Sadly the summer Rum Race series is coming to an end soon. Daylight savings time will affect the amount of sun light available to race on a week night.
A big thanks to Jason for coming out and crewing on Endurance. Jason is starting to get the hang of things (or he is in fear for his life when I go forward and decided it was better to help, hehe). He was doing a great job setting the sails at the beginning of the night and securing them after the race. Beverage service was also exceptional. lol
In fact a great crew day for the Lake Monroe Sailing Association. We had 3 new crew members show up for the evening race. All three were able to secure a ride. We had a couple new comers and one very experienced sailer show up.
As usual I was worried about the wind falling off as the evening progressed so crossed the line right at the start of the 6:00 - 6:30 PM window. The wind was ENE and I elected to go wing on wing with main on starboard and the mizzen on port. We sailed with the main's boom about 5 degrees forward of the mast. We were about 1/2 way across the course when a wave shifted the boats balance and the main sail jibed unexpectedly. It gave Jason a good scare but when I trimmed the sails the boat took off. The boat speed was up about 1/2 to 1 MPH. While surfing waves we hit speeds as high as 8.8 MPH.
Once again when we rounded the mark the real race began for us. This time I was committed to rounding the mark and trying to point high enough to go strait back to the start finish. We actually did decent for a first attempt. When pointing the right heading of 120 we were able to maintain speeds in the low 5 MPH range. That's not fast enough to win but for most of the leg we were pointing high enough to have a chance at making it.
I took some pictures of my GPS screen and I can see a couple of things that are worth noting. The first picture is of the entire course. As you can see we did have to tack on the way back. This may have been avoidable. When I rounded the mark you can see in the second shot that I fell off badly. At the time I was trying to get up to speed. I don't think that I was in a wind shift or header. That was poor sailing on my part. I need to tack cleanly and start reaching immediately. Figuring out how to do fast tacks in a Sea Pearl is going to take some practice.
In the 3rd picture you see me falling off again. That was a wind shift that I expected to happen as we got closer to the start/finish. Typically as you get closer to the island off of Sanford the wind bends a little and becomes more easterly. This meant we had to tack so that we would make the start finish line. After looking at this 3rd picture I noticed two things. First, I may have gone to far off course. I say this because when you follow my track after the 2nd tack you can see I didn't sail a strait line. I was actually falling off to the mark. What I don't have pictures of was the fun part that distracted me. The faster two S2 7.9 boats in the fleet were almost on top of me when I tacked. When I came over and was on a starboard tack I passed very near the first boat just behind him and in front of the 2nd one. It had the potential for being a dangerous move but we pulled it off perfectly and it would have made for a nice little video to review later. In hindsight I would have enjoyed tacking back to port and covering the 2nd S2 7.9 just for kicks.
The other thing I noticed in this last shot of my GPS was that we had two very clean tacks. No wandering around or falling off. That could be because of two reasons. One we weren't trying to point that high so it was easier or we did something better than when we rounded the mark. Not sure but I am going to try and do it again when I round the mark next time. I need to start analyzing some of my tacks and see if I can determine my angle of sail when reaching too.
Our finish time was good, 38:25.That's almost 4 minutes better than last week. And instead of being 8 minutes behind the leader we cut that in half to 4 minutes too. Other than the unexpected jibe it was one of our cleaner sails too. Overall results ended up like this.
Rank Boat Helm Name Elapsed Corrected
1 Risky Business Fisk Hayden 29:08 35:58
2 Show Me Andy Forrest 35:15 36:43
3 Sail Gator Jerry Brinton 30:04 37:07
4 Endurance Tom Dyll 38:25 39:46
5 Free Spirit Don Hoofring 36:20 41:39
6 Cavu Jack 41:09 41:54
7 Catalina 25 Bob 44:01 46:52
After the race there were some interesting conversations at Wolfies. Fisk from Risky Business complimented us that we had come a long way on Endurance and it may be time to move into a more competitive boat. I can't deny considering it. I started going to the Rum Races in order to learn how to get the most out of my boat and own abilities. I can not fault the boat at all. Its a lot of fun to sail in a small package. But I need to consider something a little more stable and roomy for my 5 person family and at the same time would be able to race well in the club. I haven't committed to doing anything yet but my days as a Sea Pearl 21 owner may be numbered.......
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