Race 4

Wednesday, Race 4 day started out on the ugly side. The weather radar showed a line of storm cells coming from the southwest throughout the morning and another set building in the mid afternoon. This made it tricky for the RC to find a 3 hour racing window. PRO Tom Duggan opted to hold us at the dock while the first set passed and then get us out there as quickly as possible. The talk in the clubhouse during the hold was scary to those of us who never see lightning. " Yeah, mate, I was on this Melges 32 in Florida and we took a lightning strike that vaporized the mast" Yikes! Vaporized the mast?

Our weather briefing from Ed called for wind from the southwest in the 8-14 range with cells passing through that could disrupt the flow and bring big wind. We expected the wind to go right during the day.

We sailed to the course area and the wind was in the 12-14 range out of the south. That wind speed makes jib selection a tough call. The lake conditions are short and steep and you really need punch, so the LM-2 is the choice. However, that's well at the top of its range. The GM can handle the higher breeze, but doesn't have punch in the waves. We went with the LM, probably ensuring that this is an "end of life" regatta for the sail.

We wanted the right side and Blaine positioned us about halfway up the upper half of the line -- between the mid line signal boat and the top. The "smart money" guys were pushing for the lower (left) end of that half. These starts are BUSY. Again, we had a good position at the gun, but were fouled by NZL 716 on port -- nice blokes and all that, but they really hurt. So we took transoms and more transoms to work to the right side. The wind did trend right and kicked up to about 19kts. We rounded the weather mark in 17th. The runs were pretty hairy, but we kept the keel pointed down and held our position. Craig did a great job up front in some nasty gybing conditions. We favored the right on the 2nd and 3rd beats as well and ended up with a respectable 18th for the race.

Some of the regatta leaders got stuck on the left and were really hurt on the first beat. Bill Hardesty was 39th and Vince Brun 51st!

The pictures are in some sort of order from top to bottom -- pre start at about 30 sec; starting lineup (note the sag); us (1149) bailing out to the right; us at the weather mark; our set; 20 yds from the finish.