Fleet 61 2008 spring series: week 4 (June 11)
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Fleet 61 2008 spring series: week 4 (June 11)

13 boats out for our 4th week. Surcease and Power Play have strong night.
Awesome turnout for this early series, we expect over 15 boats within a few
weeks. Beautiful weather with a decent NW wind. Jeff Goldfarb and Force G4
did a nice job of setting a square course and line. The line was pretty
roomy for a change. Power Play got off to a great start to never looked back
with Surcease coming back from deep in the pack to second. In Race 2 the
wind was left at the gun and LA Express, Surcease and Power Play took
advantage at the pin end to finish in that order.

First race:

  1. Power Play
  2. Surcease
  3. Trouble
  4. Heatwave
  5. Jeepers
  6. LA Express
  7. Don't panic
  8. Wow
  9. Ska
  10. Blondie
  11. J Puddleduck
  12. Alias
  13. Trust Me

Second race:

  1. Surcease
  2. LA Express
  3. Power Play
  4. Don't panic
  5. Heatwave
  6. Ska
  7. Jeepers
  8. Wow
  9. J Puddleduck
  10. Blondie
  11. Trouble
  12. Alias
  13. Trust Me

Another view of the night's racing from Don't Panic:

Week 4 brought us perfect sailing weather -- comfortably temperatures, dry,
and a nice 8-10 kt northwesterly left over from the previous night's wild
cold front passage (which brought 50+ kt squalls to the area).

Before the race, Don't Panic explored the left hand side of the course and
found a 40-degree port-tack lift deep in by the shoreline. The (1 minute,
40 second long!) start line looked to be about 10 degrees pin-end favored,
so our plan was to start at the pin and dig in deep left looking for the
shift. It looked like Jeepers and Surcease had the same idea, as we all
found ourselves crowded right at the pin. Don't Panic had a choice of going
above or below Surcease and picked below to avoid getting luffed up. This
turned out to be a bad move as they ended up not being able to fetch the pin
and had to tack and duck a solid line of starboard tackers. But, as luck
would have it, going right turned out to not be too bad and Don't Panic was
back in the thick of things by the first mark, ultimately ended up
mid-fleet.

The real excitement of the first race was a serious case of barging, as a
fully-loaded barge coming downwind out of the Hutchinson River made it to
windward mark just about the same time as the fleet. I didn't hear any
frantic horn blasts, but it did lend some strategic drama to the leg, as
boats had to commit to one side or the other of the barge and hope they
guessed right.

At the second start, the wind had gone back right and the line (still 1:40
long!) was square. Don't Panic got a clean start and worked their way up
the far right side of the course. The first mark rounding was a traffic jam
as the whole fleet arrived at once. Don't Panic had to do a couple of extra
tacks in close to the mark as they misjudged the layline, but came out of it
unscathed and battled for a 4th place finish after having to do a 360 on the
second upwind leg (note to self: somebody really should be watching down
below for other boats when you're going upwind on port).