Team Seacats

The boat is packed away and we’re rolling north with “Lunch Trey” Brown right behind.  The forecast this morning said things were supposed to lighten up today so we stood the rig up a little and backed off the diamond wire tension.  We got out on the water as a squall line came through dumping rain and brining 20+ knots of breeze.  Wondering if we had screwed up with the setup change this morning, we made our way to the starting area and waited only a short while for the AP flag to come down on the committee boat.  We lined up for the start just behind Ollie and Kelly Jason but got boxed in and didn’t get an opportunity to tuck out of line to get on the front row for the start.  Regardless, we powered up behind the Jasons as JC and Kenny drove over top of us.  Kenny and JC were a bit over zealous and were over early.  Fortunately for them, a general recall flag came up on the committee boat and we all had to come back.  What we believe was supposed to happen next was for us to start three minutes after our general recall.  We lined up for the start but the red flag (that should indicate our start) came back down and went back up.  We were unsure if we were actually starting, if the race committee had made a mistake, or if we weren’t even in sequence.  Figuring the first option to the be case, we lit a fire and set out up the course.  The rest of the fleet followed us and we thought we might have something.  Eventually, a race committee boat chased us down and motioned for us to return to the starting area.

By the time we got back, we were already in sequence and unsure of the timing, we were startled when the start gun went off while we were 100 feet away from the line and without speed.  We sheeted in, hooked up, and stepped out putting the the bow down to immediately start chasing those ahead of us.  All this time, we knew we were one point out of 5th position and had set that as our goal.  Tom Korz held that spot and had a good start and was clean ahead of us – our work was cut out.  John and I were delighted to find that the boat actually sailed a little better with our rigging changes this morning even though the wind was still up.  We managed to pick off several boats and finished the race in 5th with Tom Korz just behind.  That tied us up.

For the next race, the start wasn’t quite so clean again but we got off the line and found a lane to tack over to head to the right early (which was where we wanted to be).  The forecast did call for an eastward shift in the breeze at 10am – obviously it was later than that but the wind was still ENE so we hoped that shift was coming.  Low and behold, the shift came in and we found ourselves back with the leaders.  We rounded A mark and had a smoking reach to get to B.  The hot reach was a bit intimidating on these boats – mostly because we don’t do it that often.  I was trapezed with a foot on the rudder while John sat on the boat with a hand on the jib sheet ready to blow it when we got overpowered by a toothy gust.  The spinsheet got a little wild during the douse on the next C-mark rounding and went under the starboard bow.  Perplexed at how to solve this problem, we decided to wait until we were on a starboard tack to do anything about it.  John kept pressure on the sheet to keep the water from dragging it further away and possibly around a daggerboard.  When we made our starboard tack, John felt he could get it by going out to the bow.  As he went forward I went back to keep the boat from driving in with his weight on the bow.  John got to the bridle tang (while we were still moving very well upwind!) while I bore off the wind a little more to fly the hull higher and he managed to flick the sheet from under the bow.  The rest of the race was relatively uneventful as John and I went to work and managed to get around the course with good boat speed and good pointing ability.  We found ourselves really duking it out with Sandra Tartagliano and Chris Titcomb (Accelerated Chaos) and I think for the first time in the weekend, we beat them across the finish line.  We finished a fourth in that race and put Sandra between us and Tom giving us a two point advantage.

The last race saw several competitors head to the beach and it was another good gallop for John and I in the breeze.  We held onto third spot for a while before we were eventually passed by Kenny and JC.  We had some problems with the spinnaker sheet that kept us from trying to hold off Sandra and Chris.  Once we got that sorted out the race pretty much turned into a parade as we were unable to regain the lost time on Sandra and again finished in fourth (one lead F18 capsized during the race).

It was a terrific weekend full of a lot of breeze (seems like anything we sail anymore has a ton of breeze!).  Both John and I are getting a lot more comfortable in these conditions for sure.