Race hosted by RYCV
Time delayed by 11 minutes due to wind change

PHS

1 Panacea
2 Matador
3 Vella Star

AMS

1 How Bizarre
2 Matador

ORC
1 No Mans Land

Article by by Daniel McCutcheon

Another race on Saturday with a bit of everything. Huge wind shifts in the two starting sequences (good call by the RO abandoning the first sequence) and the first beat. Plenty of losses and gains before the first mark. Did anyone else think the windward and hitch marks were the wrong way around?

A breeze came through the course as the fleet rounded the top mark. Our spinnaker decided we wanted to have a bit of a lie down for a while. At that point, some strong encouragement was on board to release the vang. I gather others had a similar experience although at the time I was more focused on holding on and wondering how to make the mast vertical again. I suspect some used our experience as a cautionary tale.

We rounded the bottom mark and had a brief theoretical discussion about shortening sail. The foredeck worked hard to ignore the comment, and we stuck with the original sail combo. As the breeze moderated for the rest of the race that inaction was probably the right call.

The wind shift probably aided the asymmetric spins for the remaining runs (now reaches).

A few retirements see, and I suspect the sailmakers enjoyed the day—a fun day on the water for those who could complete the race.

– Daniel McCutcheon, Matador