Windsor Wednesday Race - Who Me?

This was another start in about 10 knots of air out of the west. The right pin was extremely favored so I wanted to come in on starboard without barging. I went away from the pin at 4 minutes to the start and tacked back at about 2:30 to go. I pretty much made it right on time but Jayhawker was just to the left of us. I say he had lost his steering so he had to go a little left so I saw that we had room to sneak in. I am positive we did not go over early because we were at the pin but were called over early. We did not hear the announcement until 45 seconds into the leg so we tacked rerounded and started again on starboard. I saw no future following the other J120s so I continued on starboard until we were left of all the boats. We then tacked on port and the pressure was better in that lane and I saw there was a lift farther up the leg. We did manage to round in 3rd behind Flyin Irish and Hot Ticket. Again I saw that it was going to be a reach so we put up the .75 oz. We did manage to catch up to HT and Irish at the next mark but I saw that the next leg was a run so we did one of our patented spinnaker change gybe. On the next leg we stayed to the left and took the boat all the way to the layline. Fortunately Flyin Irish gybed back so when we drove up to the mark so they had to stay on the outside. Merlin had gone right so coming in to the mark they were going fast. We did a Mexican takedown but because it was a 180 degree turn we came out a little slower than Merlin with FI behind. At this point it came down is if we could foot ahead we had Merlin. If Merlin footed ahead they had us. Unfortunately we eventually got backwinded by Merlin and had to tack. At this point it was game of chess and we crossed back and forth with Merlin. Merlin barely made DP5 but Dirty Harry tacked across and just enough ahead to interfere with us so Merlin managed to finish out a little ahead.

We did manage to accomplish what we wanted. If we just finished behind Merlin we would win the spring series which we did.

Result: 3rd out of 6 J120s
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/regatta2006/WYC%202006%20Spring%20Race%207.pdf

COURSE C - 7.6 nautical miles
Start to DP8 (243o) leaving it to port
-then to A (091o) leaving it to port
-then to B (007o) leaving it to port
-then to DP7 (247o) leaving it to starboard
-then to finish leaving DP5 to starboard.