Windsor Wednesday Race

This was course D starting at a broad reach on port. The first leg was only about a half mile but I noticed that the starting line was cocked severely to the pin side. The wind was only 10 knots when we came out but at the starting gun it go up to 18 - 20 true. We did not pull out our headsail until 2 minutes before the start gun because I was more interested in placing us to line at the pin at the gun. Jayhawker started a little right to us but a little behind so we were able to gas him after the start in spite of him trying to force us up to the other boats. That was enough to allow us to round the mark first. The next leg was also a nearly 2 mile broad reach were we were able to hold off the rest of the fleet without putting up our spinnaker. Some of the other boats had put up their spinnakers and were broaching all over the place. The next leg was a beat and I decided to split the difference between the two boats behind us. Unfortunately Jayhawk managed to round the next mark on starboard so I had to let him in. Because their trimmers were not ready they went past the mark causing more problems for us. When we went on the next reaching leg I decided to go to a #3 sail because of the appearance of thunder storms in front of us. I did not know how much wind was in them and was worried about blowing out the main by luffing it. The bare headed change caused us to lose a place to Merlin and we were not able to make it up in the rest of the race. Unfortunately the wind speed did drop after the sail change so it just hurt our chances.

Result: 3rd out of 6 J120's