What a fantastic day for some fall sailing! It was a bit blustery when we headed out, but weird westerly that dominated the first race faded and the breeze then settled in for another couple of races in a 8-10 kt southerly. In addition to the usual Lightnings, Buccaneers, and Albacores it was great to see 6 Lasers come out to race as well as 4 I-20 scows! We even had a number of people dressed to celebrate Halloween! Congrats to Will Summers for winning our impromptu costume contest.
PRO Jim Antonivich and his crew did a good job in getting us some nice long races on the south course near the power plant (something new!) and we were back on shore in time to enjoy a nice BBQ after the racing as the sunlight faded. Since I was double-handing with John I didn’t have a ton of time to look around. The first race was a bit funky, with all sorts of shifts and swirls as the W/SW breeze that was there in the morning tried to figure out what it was going to do. The RC sent us on an O3 (!) and we managed to lead two of those three laps, only to be passed by Nabeel on the last full upwind leg. Once we got ourselves sorted out, though, we were able to hold with the rest of the pack, even downwind (John did a great job flying the spinnaker and working us through some perfect jibes as I drove). The 2nd and 3rd races – both O2 courses – saw some ups and downs in pressure but not too many shifts. The line was a bit boat favored in both of those races, and I managed to put us over early in each one of them so we were playing catch up quite a bit. The left (east) side of the course seemed to have more pressure as it was away from the shadow of the Alexandria shoreline, and that generally paid even as the current and tidal outflow became more of a factor later in the day. In the Lightning class Nabeel won two races, Frank won the last one, and on 14592 we were consistently in 2nd all day long. I’d welcome any additional thoughts and observations from other boats!
2015 Fall Series 6 – Albacores
