Here’s the recap of Spring Series #5 racing, written by PRO Jeff Neurauter:
Despite the rain, we saw wonderful breeze on the river today and 4 Albacores and 1 Buccaneer showed up to play. Based on the size of the fleet and types of boats involved, the group decided to race in the river straight out from Washington Sailing Marina. This worked perfectly as it allowed us to get to and back from the race course quickly. The RC set up a W-2 and waited for competitors to arrive.
The first race started with one of the Albacores trying to execute a dip start – unfortunately they remained a boat length above the line and were called over early. The lead Albacore managed to accumulate a sizable lead by the 3rd leg of the course and casually sailed through the finish line on their way to the windward mark. The rest of the Albacores and the Bucc must have noticed this and must not have checked the course flags, because they all sailed through the finish line and then stopped racing! They each peeled off and started pacing back and forth below the start line. Meanwhile the lead Albacore was rounding the windward mark. After a few minutes, some of the Albacores had realized their mistake but none of them continued racing. Instead, the RC and everyone else waited patiently for one Albacore to sail the rest of the racecourse. It took the lone Albacore just over 20 minutes to finish the race and everyone else who started the race was scored DNF.
The second race started with the Albacores aggressively pushing the starting line and once again an Albacore or two were called over early. As this race progressed the wind steadily clocked to the left and by the time boats were on the 3rd leg, it was almost a reach to the windward mark. So we moved the windward mark from the Maryland side of the river to the Virginia side, squared the starting line, and prepared for the 3rd race.
The third race started with the Albacores again fighting for space on the line and again the RC called boats over early. As this race progressed, the wind clocked back to the right so we had to move the windward mark back to toward the Maryland side of the river for the next race.
By the fourth start, the Albacores had figured things out and made it off the line cleanly. This race brought the most exciting competition as the there were several very close roundings and position changes throughout the race by the top 3 boats.
