Water Phantom raced non-spinnaker this past weekend in the Hancock Yacht Club Regatta held in the Neuse River off the Marine Air Station Cherry Point. Usually I go spinnaker, but the competition was better in non-spin with 4 others while the spin fleet only had 2. Since I would rather compete than chase trophies, we stayed in non-spin.
My crew of 7 suffered in the 1st no-wind race which began before the sea breeze had a chance to arrive but with some luck and persistence we crossed the line 1st of 5 but were corrected over by 30 seconds by a well sailed Pearson 30--ended up 2nd in a fleet of 2 P-30s, a San Juan 30 and a P-31. Not too bad for the heaviest boat in the fleet. The second race had a great sea breeze of 8-10 knots, we put the board down to good effect and stayed in clear air on the triangle course and did a horizon job on the others for 1st place. The 3rd race we were too aggresive at the start, got there early and as we turned to keep the bow behind the line, the midships crossed it early so we had to restart, which involved a jibe and tack since we were too far down the line to just dip. Never giving up, we got our heads back in the game but fell below the layline to the windward mark which required 2 extra tacks. Needless to say, we did not finish anywhere but 5th, DFL. However, on corrected time we were only 9 seconds out of 3rd which would have tied us for 1st. With a 1st and at least a 2nd pretty much assured, it was our regatta to lose and we were unnecessarily aggresive at the start. My 36 XL/kcb takes way more than 9 seconds to do either a jibe and a tack or 2 tacks! This time we really snatched 3rd from a 2nd or 1st--even though the official results were not available until after all the races. No races on Sunday since the sea breeze was late and so we left with no way to redeem our 3rd race. Moral--don't let short term tactics or the fun of having a great start get in the way of the big picture! Charlie Nelson Water Phantom C&C 36XL/kcb cenel...@aol.com
_______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com CnC-List@cnc-list.com
