Bayview Mackinaw Race - Who's on First?

This race started with moderate wind out of the northeast. Although it made sense to go on the port end of line because of getting the freshest breeze the boats previously had started at he starboard end seemed to have better starts. Unfortunately in previous classes the starboard end was not crowded most of the J120's had the same idea. After starting the race with the 1.5 oz. spinnaker, about 45 minutes up the course we got hit with a abrupt header causing us to dump the spinnaker and go to a head sail. In this entire melee Merlin,who started on the left side of the line, managed to get about a half mile lead on us. We managed to follow them into night time. We could only recognize them by their bright masthead light with no stern light. As we got close to the Southhampton turning mark dawn approached. Hot Ticket andIrristable popped out from the right side and Merlin stayed on the left. In any case the Canadians rounded 1st 10 minutes ahead, with Merlin and Hot Ticket 3 to 4 minutes ahead.

After rounding the wind was a close reach and eventually went to a fetch. During this time we did manage to pull ahead of the 3 other J120's with them being slightly north. This is the point I probably threw away the lead. When the wind went to a 15 to 20 knot reach I should of consolidated our lead ahead of Merlin and Ticket (we were already a mile directly ahead of Irristable). Instead I say a replay of last year where Capers was pulling up south of us and thought they would pass us. Unfortunately the smart money was on Merlin and Ticket. We did meet up with Ticket later in the day in practically no wind were we did a little circle dance (30 feet apart) with us and they managed to get the air faster and left us in front. As hard as we tried we could not catch up to Merlin and Ticket to the finish.

Result: 3rd out of 9 J120's, Merlin 1st, Hot Ticket 2nd
Link: http://www.byc.com/mack06 , http://www.byc.com/mack06/results-south.cfm?Class=J120
Crew: Colleen Flanagan, Henrik Hedegaard, Rod Weston, Mike Badendieck, Nathan Caspers, Brian Hawkins, Nancy Caldwell, Brian Ginnebaugh, Dave "Baker" Keeler