This race starts in Fort Lauderdale. The starting conditions where the wind was at about 8 knots from the north.We started on the right side of the line with the .6 oz spinnaker and held to starboard to get as close to the shore as possible to stay out of the current. This made some sense but boats such as Bad Fish (Melges 32) and Meridian (Farr 36) that stayed about a mile to the east did get some more wind pressure early. We managed to stay ahead of the 53 foot Swan Dragon Fly by about a half mile in these moderate conditions.
As the evening turned to night the wind started to freshen. It was more westerly and we we started to get 110 degrees apparent and went to the 3/4 oz. At this point the Farr and Melges started to fall behind in the current but Dragon Fly's faster hull speed started to come into play. We were able to skin the line that marked the edge of the reef. At this point we held them off until about 10 pm but were never able to pass her. We got so close we could read the numbers on her instruments a couple of times. The last time the wind picked up and we blew up the 3/4 spinnaker. There was a call for all hands on deck and we managed to put the code 0 up on deck but lost a half a mile. We caught up some more but it just was not enough by daylight. At 8 am we rounded the Key West buoy and went to weather with the #3 headsail to finish. As you can see from the video it did get cold but it was not worse than any Mackinac race but is not expected for Florida. Result:: 2nd in class A
Link: http://www.keywestrace.org
Finish link: http://www.yachtscoring.com/event_results_detail.cfm?Race_Number=1&eID=297
Crew Members: Bob Declercq, Chuck Bayer, Rod Weston, Scott Shrake, Colleen Flanagan, Nancy Caldwell, Karl Kuspa, Michell Busho, Mike Badendieck
No comments:
Post a Comment