We started the day again with an hour delay on shore and then several hours wait on the water. A big effort was made to lighten the boat and make some changes to the set up in order to speed the boat up in light air. We started to leeward of the Shockwave but Rambler did a nice port tack start at the pin. The boat felt better sailing upwind and we rounded the mark just behind Rambler and a few lengths ahead of Shockwave. We held our own downwind against Rambler, but Shockwave closed the gap on us by the time we got to the leeward mark. The rounding went well and the weather string drop was nice. The boys in the back did some nice work on the beat and we closed a little on Rambler and extended nicely on Shockwave.
The set seemed to be going fine but just as the kite was nearing the top of the rig, it completely tore. We quickly got our next kite up but not before Shockwave caught up to us. We finished that race in second, just beating Rambler by 11 seconds corrected.
Now we switch the boat to offshore mode and start getting ready for the Bermuda race.
158th ANNUAL REGATTA presented by ROLEX: Race day 2
One light air race was our treat today. We were delayed onshore for an hour and then set out for the ocean course. We waited a little longer for the breeze once we got out there and then had a 2 lap race. We started to leeward of Rambler with a decent start and were able to force them to tack off. Rambler eventually got around us, and Shockwave rounded right on our tail. We performed a Sambooka at the top (which is a gybe set but set up as a bareaway set). The other boats did a bearaway set and gybed a few minutes afterwards. They were able to carry more pressure to the mark and rounded ahead of us. We fought back for the rest of the race trying to make something work but to no avail. On the last run, there was a tear on the leech of the kite. On the last gybe of the run, the kite split in half meaning we quickly had to get our back up kite up.
So the finish was less than desirable but we are learning about how to sail our boat in the light.
More races tomorrow but with still a light forecast.
158th ANNUAL REGATTA presented by ROLEX: First race day
We raced around the island today. The race started in about 10-11 knots, and built to 16-17 knots by the time we sailed around and started coming back upwind.
We started on the boat end of the line, to windward of Rambler. After a few minutes of sailing upwind, we had to take a clearing tack. Once we found our mode we felt comfortable upwind but as we exited the channel, the Wizard (our old boat) had some more favorable current and got around us before the top mark. Both boats set overlapped with each other, sailing high angles to try and stay clear of the slower boats that had started before us. We gybed countless times all the way down the channel. Half way down, a small tear appeared in the bottom part of the kite. We kept a close eye on the tear and after a few more gybes, it started to get worse. So we decided to gybe peel to the next kite, Although the maneuver was a bit noisy as we are still getting settled as a crew on the new boat, it went relatively smoothly. On the whole run we kept trading places with Shockwave and Wizard. All the boats are incredibly close and the racing this weekend will be close, especially in the light air. On the long beat back to the finish line, we split from the fleet and made a very nice gain that won us the race. Rambler was first to finish, with us crossing the line in second but winning the race on corrected.
It was nice to win the first race but we are under no illusion that it will be easy. In the light air, our competition is very quick and will be very hard to beat. The forecast for this weekend is for light air so we are hoping that the sea breeze will fill in nicely.
