Nationals Day 3

Movin' up slowly.  Similar conditions again today - although the breeze was even more left, so even more shifty and puffy with huge patches of light wind. It was easy to sail into a hole with no wind in the lee of the St. Francis Yacht Club while tacking up the shore. Scores today: 7, 7, 1. I am happy with those results, but have to nit pick some mistakes where I lost boats in the first two races.

Race 1 - not a good start - didn't have a big enough hole to leeward and tried to force it to work. It didn't help that the kid to leeward of me was over early and luffed up underneath me. - Got to come in to the boat with more speed to maintain flow and maintain hole to leeward. I was too close to the line too early I think.

Race 2 - Decent start, and made decent tactical decisions up and down, but lost on a few bad tacks,  and also lost on one of the reaches by going low. Then lost more by not maintaining speed well in the choppy mixed up wind and waves of the last short beat to the finish. In race 2 it was especially important to get up in to the left corner at the top of the beat for current relief - it would be important the whole way up - but there was such a hole in the lee of the yacht club that it was better to stay in a little more wind and adverse current.

Race 3 - Nailed the start. Started mid line at the right end of the new ebb current. The eddy line was at the middle of the start line - I wanted to be in the good current, but the line was favoring the boat. Stayed in the favorable current all the way up and played shifts. Downwind I made sure I stayed on the other side of the eddy line and looked for puffs. Same again upwind and down and always watching Haddon not to far behind me to make sure that I was in position to get any new wind that she got. She was working hard to catch me and would creep up at times. I had to hike really hard on the upwinds to stay ahead of her!

Now sitting in 5th. Tomorrow - the last day - we are scheduled to have 2 races for a total of 11. Currently we are all throwing out 1 score, and after 10 races we throw out a second score. The pressure is still on fore me to score two good races tomorrow and throw out a 22 so that I can move up to 4th or 3rd. 3rd would be cool - 2nd or 1st not likely since Haddon in 2nd and Erik in 1st would have to have two horrible races or black flags or something tomorrow, and they have both shown consistency. My plan is to be fully switched on, sail smart and not risky, nail the starts without being over, pay close attention to current and wind - head out of the boat.

Here is the link to results:
http://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=8479

Pics from Friday:

Pics from today: