C22 Whitby

John was camping with his family, so Paul and I went out.

Winds were forecast for 6 knots from the south west, full main and #1.

Before the race started, the wind died, leaving 1-2 ft lumps around.  Was worried it would be a long race (4S), but before the gun, the wind filled in from the NW to about 8-10 knots, so the race committed postponed for 10 minutes and reset the course.  Course was 2M.  Getting ready for the start, we hit 7.3 knots on the GPS on a beam reach.

Originally, I wanted Paul to do the helming, but it was very puffy, so I took over the duties as I did not want to round up at the start with all kinds of boats around.    We had a good start, just to leeward of the all the starboard tack boats near the committee boat.  We were neck and neck with our competitors around the first and second marks.

On the long upwind 4th leg, I deciced to stay offshore close hauled on a starboard tack.  This was a mistake, as our competors tacked inshore early, and beat us to the windward mark.  Looking at the GPS track, there was lift towards the mark, meaning they didn't have to go too far inshore before tacking to the mark.

On the final short upwind leg, we came in close hauled to the commitee boat.  Good thing we did, because the wind was diminishing, and shifted about 45 degrees to port, and we almost missed the other side of the line.

We finished last in our division, but not too far behind the others.

UPDATE: we were last in corrected time, but still in 2nd place for the series.

Trip Odometer: 14.20 miles
Moving Avg: 4.1 knots
Moving Time: 02:50:20

Google Earth track: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2012/20120704.kmz