Two Keeper Scores on Last Day of Qualifying
Today was a very tricky day on the water. I was in Yellow fleet today, and as luck would have it, I started third again! After a short postponement ashore for my fleet, I headed out in what looked like a light sea breeze. The sea breeze never really came in though, and the breeze dropped from 10-12 at first to 5-6 for the most part of the day. It was light, very lumpy, and very shifty.
In the first race, I had a mediocre start in the middle and was bounced around a bit before rounding in the low 20s. I had an ok downwind, passing a few boats, and then headed for more pressure out on the left. I was able to get some pressure and big left shift to pass a lot more boats and move into 9th place at the weather mark! The race became a bit of a parade after that since there were too many fleets on the course to move the marks enough. I ended up with an 8th.
In the second race, I really liked the pin and decided to get a bit more aggressive on the line. I won the pin end and was looking great! A few hundred yards off the line, there was a big left shift and pressure and all the boats above me were pointed at my stern. I tacked and crossed the fleet, pointed at the next mark. A few boats went behind me and further into the lefty. As we sailed across the beat, the wind went further left, and I ended up rounding in 4th. I was duking it out with some guys around there, but I think we all hurt each other a bit too much and allowed a few guys to catch up. What could have been a race for a top three or four turned into a six person battle for 3rd. I missed a puff on the last beat to fall back to 7th. I passed one on the reach and held on to 6th at the finish.
It was a tough day out there, and a lot of people put up some high numbers. Tomorrow starts Gold Fleet racing, and with the points so close, I'm looking to have some more good races to move up a bit more.
