The start of this race was delayed until we had adequate wind. In this race I wanted to get to the right side of the line since it was favored. I had to tack when Bounder tacked to starboard and I did not see any holes behind him. This race finally had some heavier air from 16 to 20 knots. We managed to put away Ihnsanity and Jayhawker from leeward. Merlin and Perseverence tacked in front of us but we hung in there. I went to a #3 on the second upwind leg but it turned out to be the wrong choice. We seemed to be doing well with the other J120's with #3's but could not keep up with the ones with #1's upwind. We switched back to the #1 on the next upwind leg while doing well with Perseverence and Merlin. We passed Merlin while even with her on port on the downwind leg and Merlin came over on starboard to take us out to the corner for the pin. When they jibed back they put an hourglass in their chute and we passed in front of them. On the same leg we passed Perserverence because they had already blown their .6 oz spinnaker and were flying their .75 oz chute. At that point we stayed in front on the next upwind leg and overstood a little the mark in order to control P and not make an extra tack. On the next downwind leg Merlin was right behind us and we did a leeward takedown early to stay conservative. I figured if Merlin pulled down their chute well we would still be on the inside of the mark. Merlin had trouble pulling it down so we left them in the dust. At that point we just covered to finish first. We took our spinnaker down early and overstood the windward mark a little bit. I figured in both cases if the boat behind us caught up they would still have to go through our air. This race was won by near perfect crew work and the good advise of Art Le Vasseur. We managed to finish dead *ss first in PHRF D and the entire fleet. Totally opposite of yesterday. Like I said it was Schizophrenia! After all was done we found out by this race if we beat Hot Ticket we would win the J120 Great Lakes Trophy. Unfortunately they had the forestay seperate and lost their rig. Not the way to win it but this was a wonderful race for us.
Result: 1st of 7 J120's, 1st of 16 PHRF D, 1st of 43 in entire fleet
Link: http://www.ltyc.org/regatta_results/200
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