This race started in front of Bayview between a committee boat and a pin. Wind conditions were only about 7 knots to weather with a lot of direction and intensity shifts. I wanted to get good boat speed biased to the right of the other boats because I felt there was more wind on the right side of course inspite of the faster current. Ihnsanity was still to our right at the gun while the other J120's fought for the pin with Merlin grabbing it from the outside. We stayed on the right side of the river while most of the other boats went up the left side. After a couple of tacks I tried to do as few starboard tacks as possible because the current would just push the boat down stream. We did not go back on starboard until we were out in the lake. That put us ahead of the other boats. Here is where my first mistake was made. Instead of covering the other boats I let them get in on the Michigan shore and NM managed to catch up and eventually passed us to weather. We tacked at the front range light but kept most of the boats to the left. We continued to tack in the northeast wind when favorable. NM and the other boats except Ihnsanity went more right where we went into the bay on the shoreline. We got a wonderful lift following it. I could see that the smoke coming out of a large power plant was coming from the northwest so all we had to do is tack and get to Huron Point Buoy. Unfortunately the wind went right over the land and believe it or not gave that wind to leeward of us first. We rounded in 4th place (merlin had gone aground and withdrawn) flying a code 0. We did a jibe spinnaker change to our .6 oz chute. We managed to work by Jayhawker with boat speed and good trimming. I tried jibing left early in the channel but the current just slowed us down too much. When the wind went right again we eventually went to the headsail and then switched back to the code 0 with the wind at about 55 degrees aparrent to Thames River buoy.
We could see NM and Ihnsanity come out ahead of us at the buoy with Ihnsanity rounding 1 mile ahead of us. The first part of the trip back was with a code 0 and we switched to 3/4 AP. Mike was steering and he comment on slow the change was. We dropped to 4 knots and he did not see why the new chute did not fill faster. I think this was good instructional conversation. Firstly the new chute cannot fill until the old one is blown and starts to come down. Secondly it is important to turn the boat up to get the apparent boat speed faster to speed it back up. Of course when you are the wheel time always move slower. We managed to catch up to Large Marg at the river and almost rolled her. Crazy Horse with the much larger water line attempted to roll us at the front range light but could not. We did have spirited conversation about going to a headsail at the light because the numbers were showing 45 degrees apparent on the instrument. I could tell it was much more abeam because the kite was not strapped all the way in. I think we were just getting some windshear at the top.
Upon entering the river Ihnsanity was only a 1/4 mile ahead of us. They chose to hug the Michigan shoreline where we opted to stay out in the river. We had experienced the same thing last year with Merlin where they sailed right into a hole. This gave us enough speed differential to beat them right at the finish line by a boat length.
This race was obviously well sailed by Night Moves. They got in front and did the necessary cover moves to stay in front. They have become a very good competitor and the standings are starting to show it. They were so far ahead that they may get first overall for the race. We shall see.
Course: starting line leaving both Peche Island Range lights to starboard to buoy G1”PH” (Point Huron outer buoy (42° 33. 2’ N - 082° 44.8’ W)) which shall be left to starboard. Thence to G27 (42° 29.8’N - 082° 43.0’ W) which shall be left to port. Thence to the Thames River entrance channel outer buoy (RW “T” Mo(A)) (42° 20.7’N - 082° 28.6’W). Thence to the finishing line, leaving both Peche Island range lights to port.
Result: 2nd out of 5 J/120's
Link: http://www.drya.org/race2005/Results/by
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