Day Four
The fourth day of the Sail For Gold regatta brought more of the same on the Laser course. I headed down to the club for a 1 PM race, but the Race Committee kept the Lasers on shore an extra hour to start the Radials. After the radials got going, we were sent out for two races. Oddly, the RC decided to sail Bronze fleet first, then Silver, and finally Gold. And sticking to form, the RC postponed us for well over an hour to set the course and wait for the breeze to stabilize. It's getting a little frustrating to sit waiting in nice breeze and not be able to sail!
We finally got our start off, and my group raced an inner loop course. I had a good start below the pack at the boat and sailed off the line on starboard for about a minute. I got a header and quickly tacked to the right, looking pretty good on the fleet. I sailed most of the way up the beat on port before trying to consolidate a little at the top. Unfortunately I got out of phase and rounded in about 15th when I should have been in the top 5. I lost a few boats on the downwind leg, but headed to the left for a cloud on the second beat. The left worked well, and I caught up to 11th at the windward mark. I stayed in 11th for the rest of the race.
In the second race, I got a good start in the middle-boat area again and played the middle right side of the beat. I was looking like I was in the top 10 when about half way up the breeze went about 20 degrees right and there was about 5 more knots of pressure on the right. There were approximately 17 boats that were further right than I was because I rounded in 18th at the first mark! The pressure and shift allowed everyone on the right side to just reach over the fleet. The rest of the race was kind of a parade because the RC didn't move any of the marks. I picked off a few boats on the second "beat" to catch up to 12th in the race. We finished our second race at 6:30. Gold fleet hadn't even started their second race, and they ended up getting back to the dock at 8:15 PM! Long day!
One more day of racing tomorrow before a few days off.
