Well, we had a very good first 2/3rds of the race. We were well ahead of our
class 15 miles down course at the Gulfport sea buoy. We were still in
front at the Mobile sea buoy 60 miles down the course (we thought).
Then things went downhill. Between the wind and the skipper (me) going
brain dead, we had a poor finish.
After watching the forecast for days call for nothing over 9 knots, I chose
not to bring the #3. After the Mobile sea buoy the wind piped up to
15-17 knots on the nose. We were struggling mightily with the 155
genoa. The toerail was buried and we were getting kicked sideways. Our upwind
VMG went to crap. Instead of 0.6 to 0.7 times boat speed, VMG
(and waypoint closure velocity) dropped to 0.4 to 0.5 times boatspeed.
After a couple hours of that we looked back and noticed a Morgan 44 center
cockpit had crept back up on us. We put in a reef and managed to
increase VMG a bit and not lose any more time to him but he had made up
enough to correct over us by 4 minutes. This was the brain dead moment. We
should have reefed a couple hours earlier. Duh!
I just watched the replay. We rounded the Mobile sea buoy almost dead even
with a Newport 41. Not bad.
The Morgan never showed on the Kattack system. That kinda irritated us but
really shouldn't have because years ago there wasn't any tracking
system and we wouldn't have known he was there until we saw him
visually. We checked the competition after the Mobile buoy and thought
we were in good shape. Wish I could see where the Morgan was at this
point.
So we can only lick our wounds, learn our lesson and forget what could have
been. New rules - always take the #3!! Reef early, reef often!
Dennis C.
Touche' 35-1 #83
Mandeville, LA
>________________________________
> From: Frederick G Street <f...@postaudio.net>
>To: Dennis C. <capt...@yahoo.com>; cnc-list@cnc-list.com
>Sent: Monday, June 24, 2013 9:10 AM
>Subject: Re: Stus-List Track Touche' racing Gulfport to Pensacola
>
>
>
>Dennis -- how did the race go?
>
>
>Fred Street -- Minneapolis
>S/V Oceanis (1979 C&C Landfall 38) -- on the hard in Bayfield, WI :^(
>
>On Jun 17, 2013, at 2:43 PM, Dennis C. <capt...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>The Gulfport to Pensacola Race has live tracking this year. You can watch
>Touche's progress, or lack thereof, at:
>>
>>
>>http://kws.kattack.com/kattacklive/offshore.aspx?FeedID=1089
>>
>>
>>Race begins at noon Friday June 21. Looks like a slow, possibly wet one this
>>year. Way different than last year's 20+ hours beating upwind in mid 20's
>>and 6 foot seas.
>>
>>
>>
>>Dennis C.
>>Touche' 35-1 #83
>>Mandeville, LA
>
>
>
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