Regatta Wrap Up - San Fran Nationals

Another black flag! That pretty much ruined my chances of moving up in the standings. Other than being over early, race one went pretty well. It was the earliest we had sailed in the tide cycle, and the current was not yet strong, so I had decided that shifts and pressure changes (which were big) would be the biggest factor. That philosophy worked well, I would have finished 6th or 7th I think.

For race 2 the current had built, and it was important to seek current relief from the shore, but the shifts were huge. The biggest we had seen all week. I did a pretty good job choosing when to head for shore, and when to go out to grab some wind and a right shift, but I missed a couple obvious things here and there. I let a boat cross that I should have forced to tack, and I ducked a boat to go farther left when we were already over stood and I should have tacked ahead and to leeward. The biggest mistake was probably at the bottom of the last little beat to the finish. It has been extremely hard to predict which way to go in all of our races. Usually the water was mixed up from nearby powerboats, and the wind was mixed up from all the boats to windward still reaching. I rounded the leeward mark right between two other boats, so I was in one guys bad air and the next guy was in my bad air. We had all done good wide and tight roundings, so I was able to tack, and I did and split from the boats right behind me. In retrospect, it was a risky choice and I should have covered even though we were all going slow. It turned out that the right won and I lost 3 or 4 boats by going left. No reason to leave anything up to chance at the end if it means you could lose.

All in all, I am happy with my 5th place finish, and I have lots of stuff to work on, like starts! Thank you for reading,  next regatta is CORK in Kingston, Ontario. Stay tuned.

-Christine

Results:

http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=8479