WYC Wednesday Chimo Night Race - Stirred not Shaken

This race started in the Detroit River in front of the Windsor Yacht Club. The course went up past DP5, DP7 and then up to R8 in the shipping channel out in the lake. The wind was coming up the river at maybe 5 or 6 knots from the Windsor side. I wanted to start from left side by the buoy but got there a little early. We gybed to starboard along the line until the gun. Night Moves was on our right and eventually started to gas us. I could tell there was less pressure in the middle because of high rise blocking the wind so I called for a gybe. When we hit the island side it was clear with less current and more air and were making time on the other J120s. As we got pushed into the river

we got caught with Hot Ticket our left and had to concede a place to them. We continued with a chute out the leg where we went to a head sail at R8. We allowed Jayhawker to get up on us and they rounded ahead of us at R2. The next leg was at about 45 degrees apparent but I could see everyone getting lifted farther down. We went high on the leg and when we got farther down we would put up our code 0. At that point we rolled right past Merlin and beat them to mark Dp7. They immediately tacked and we went a 100 yard past and did the same thing. At this time a free for all started. 4 J120s were tacking back and forth. We entered the river with Merlin in the lead, Jayhawker, Us and Hot Ticket. We had tacked a little to the center of the river and got more pressure there. We managed to roll Jayhawker and nearly reached Merlin. It was an exciting race and a fitting end to our Michigan season. We came out of it in 2nd in a close race and recovered enough to end up first overall for the Wednesday night season.

Result 2nd out of 6 J120s
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/2007-regatta/WYC%202007%20Chimo%20Race.pdf

WYC Wednesday Night Race - Who needs wind?

The first leg was 110 degrees with light air around 5 or 6 knots out of the northwest. The starts in front of us were starting on port with spinnakers. The boats farther in the lake were getting more air so they seemed to get a little more speed. I noticed about 7 minutes before our start some cat paws coming from the south shore. I could see there was a major shift coming (180 dgrees) and actually motored for 15 seconds before the 5 minute gun to get to the new air. We hung around the right pin before the gun and put up our spinnaker. Hot Ticket reached up to us and got across first with Merlin and Night Moves in a hole farther down the line. Up the first leg I could see the pressure was still on the right side of the course so I tried to bias the us there. It was enough to round mark A with us on the inside of Hot Ticket. They tacked immediately where we held out tack about a 100 yards since Merlin right behind stretched their tack out also(port tack was favored). Going farther up the leg we managed to hold our lead with Ticket and they crossed behind us on the next tack. At this point I only wanted to cover HT and stay to their right. Hot ticket had a battle with a fishing boat and went aground. After a number of tacks in lighter and lighter air Merlin managed to catch up four boat lengths behind us. At DP5 the wind shut down and essentially we drifted in ahead of them. We could still win the race even without wind. Go figure.

Result: 1st out of 4 J/120s
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/2007-regatta/WYC%202007%20Fall%20Race%207.pdf


COURSE 5 - 4.6 nautical miles
Start to A (110o) leaving it to starboard
-then to DP7 (275o) leaving it to starboard
-then to DP5 leaving it to starboard
-then to finish line.

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