Sunday was another great day on the water – sunny and warm with a nice southerly(ish) breeze and lots of boats on the line, which was awesome. Tom and his buddy were able to get in a bunch races and the course was Olympic which added some nice variety to our usual windward/leewards.

One hiccough was that the battery was dead on the automatic countdown timer and the committee boat horn was not particularly loud, so you really needed to be near the committee boat to catch the sequence start and timing updates. The first upwind leg was relatively short and it felt like a bit of a sprint to the windward mark. In hindsight, I probably could have under-stood the mark a bit (especially when I was on the starboard layline for 7-10+ boat lengths) and allowed the tide to push me up to the mark – ended up over-standing a bit more often than I would have liked. Reaches were fun and I enjoyed not always jibing at the jibe mark and instead going by the lee for most or all of many 2nd reach legs. It was a little challenging to not hit the leeward mark because of the ebbing tide.

During the 2nd upwind, I generally played the shifts and that worked pretty well – did not strongly favor one side over the other, although perhaps ended up more left than right, but still pretty centered. Upwind, I focused a lot on hiking hard and keeping my weigh forward and the boat as flat as possible. Vang was generally 2-blocked, with some play in the cunningham and outhaul. During the run, generally made sure that keep the vang loose enough for the leech to flab a bit, but still kept looking upwind regularly to make sure a giant puff wasn’t imminent. Tried to stay out of the wind shadows of others, pay attention to any shifts, and surf any waves that seemed appropriate.

Overall, it was a really fun afternoon. Thanks to everyone who showed up and to Tom and his friend for running races!

Laura