Day 4 – Wednesday 7 March
Two apologies. First, you probably don’t want to know this, but sunrise this morning was spectacular, and by 8.15am it was warm enough for us to have breakfast on the terrace in T-shirt and shorts. Secondly, no photos at the moment. I'll try to upload some tomorrow morning US time, but I have put some links on the home (news) page.
I had thought that the day would be very light - but that was based on the wind on the terrace of the hotel. In fact we had perfect sailing conditions - force 3, warm wind and water and sun.
The wind was oscillating around 95 degrees. This means it was coming from the direction of Key Biscayne, and was shifty. We had 2 general recalls. In the first we started by the mid line boat. In the second we were nearer the pin end. In each case we had a reasonable state. (The start line is split into 2 parts for this regatta - committee boat - mid line - pin end. So really it is 2 starting lines.)
I then had the feeling that we would see a right shift. So we decided to start by the committee boat for the next start which was under a 1 minute round the end rule flag.
My start was spectacularly bad - moving slowly in the 4th row. But at least we had positioned ourselves for a flip onto port, just past the bow of the committe boat. So we did a quick tack after about 10 seconds of wallowing on starboard, and it appeared we might get away with a reasonable start. What I had not bargained for is that our friends Jock and Larry, who had won the 2nd race, would also have decided to make a spectacularly bad start. As we got moving on to port, they emerged from behind the stern of the committee boat on starboard. We ducked them, they could not imagine anyone else was near them, so they tacked, and the two of us crawled past the bow of the committee boat. We split tacks after that - we heading out to sea, and Jock and Larry in the middle.
We were forced more and more to the right of the course, eventually reaching the port lay line and beyond. Right was favoured, so having been nearly last, we were in the late 40s when we rounded the windward mark. There we met our friends Jock and Larry who rounded one behind us. On the run we went right, and they went left.
Down the run, we were next to former Star World Champion (in 1985!) Vince Brun. We were sailing reasonably fast. But left on the run paid, and we rounded some 5 places behind Jock and Larry. Up the next beat, we did well generally going left on the beat. We picked up a nice lift, and approached the mark on port, about 100 yards down. We passed in front of VB and moved into the 30s. Then I made another blunder, and got forced on to the starboard layine. Then a boat tacked on us, I tacked and ended up overstanding. But at least we were in the 30s. Larry and Jock were now behind us. And VB, who was 20 yards behind us, ended up 20 in front as a result of my overstanding.
Then I made another error. We stayed on the starboard gybe for a while - which was correct - but I missed a shift to the east - I should have gybed and gone left. Instead I pressed on to the right, battling it out with a group of 3 or 4. Worse was to come, because we lost places to them having got (as we later discovered) a nasty clump of weed on the keel. We have weed sticks, but its almost impossible to get weed off on the run - and anyway you can't see it until you go onto the next beat.
By the bottom mark we had lost 15 places. We picked up a few on the next beat, but ended up 46th.
Slightly disappointing, but the racing is incredibly close, with boats approaching windward and leeward marks in batches of 10 at a time – and one bad leg can easily cost you 15 places, or more.
We have just come back from the Mid-Week prize-giving and poolside Barcardi Party. There was a huge cheer as Jock and Larry collected their 1st prize for Monday's race. It's not often that amateurs win a race at this event.
We are currently 34th out of about 75, but we will probably drop back when discards cut in after tomorrow's race.