Windsor Wednesday Race - Chimo

This was a river start in front of the Windsor Yacht Club. We got there a little early and found that there was wind at about 5 to 6 knots on the right side of the river coming from the south (mainland side) and in an upwind direction. I decided to start on the yacht club side as close as possible in order to not get caught in the traffic, thus disturbed air. Merlin started to our left with a little more speed, Jayhawker to the left of them about a 100 yards over and Night Moves was somewhere down stream fighting off Flyin' Irish. We were right on the line at the gun but started very slow. Merlin managed to get a little ahead of us by less than a boat length and Jayhawker was even a little more ahead. We all had to eventually go to the left side of the river as the wind speed dropped to about 1 to 2 knots in the middle and boats on the island side were moving out. I tried to stay on starboard as long as possible as tacking to port was really ugly. The current would pull us down the river. Just past the seawall we tacked back because there was a hole in the fleet. That turned out to be a mistake. Jhopper stayed on starboard behind us and got lifted to DP5. We did however passed DP5 in 2nd about 5 boat lengths behind. About a quarter of the way to DP7 the wind started to go right so we put up our code 0. We got it up before J put up their .6 oz and gained a little. Essentially we worked on catching J all the way to R8 with the code 0 round only a boat length behind. We got it partially down tacked and finished the take down. I made a small mistake where I thought that the code 0 had pulled into the headsail but did too early. That slowed down the foredeck crew so I needed to turn the boat down again. Fortunately for us at the mark Jayhopper had problems taking down their chute and ended up doing 360 degree turn. At this point we went into our conservative mode with only a headsail. We decided not to put up a code 0 inspite of a 50 apparent wind direction in case we got headed. As long as the boat behind us did not raise one we did not need to do it. When we got in the mouth of the river however Jhopper came in with some wind and got a little more pressure on the right side but it was not enough to pass us at the finish. Incredibly also there were other boats just leaving the river when we got there.

This was great finish to a great season. This was the 4th 1st place in a row we took this fall and this race cinched us for 1st place for the overall Windsor night series. I feel that the crew and our experience has carried us a long way. We are still making some mistakes but not enough to hurt our finishes. Talking to the crew I am sure that we want to continue to make our program better.

COURSE 1 (river start) - 9.6 nautical miles
Start to DP5 leaving it to port

-then to DP7 leaving it to port
-then to R2 leaving it to starboard (025M)
-then to R8 leaving it to starboard (054M)
-then to DP7 leaving it to starboard (225M)
-then to DP5 leaving it to starboard
-then to finish line.

Result: 1st out of 4 J120's
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2005/WYC%202005%20Chimo%20Race.pdf