It's been a very interesting regatta- 100 boats here and some truly awesome sailors and legends. I'm just trying to learn a lot, not hurt myself or the boat, and stay out of the way of the rock stars- so far I've succeeded. This is a great venue in general! It's been tough conditions every day IMO- First day the wind was good but gusty- I don't know the official numbers but the gusts had to be upper teens to lower 20's with a very short choppy sea state and the occasional large (ie 50'+ motoryachts) boat waves. Lots of pounding and boats going over (including me), boats and gear breaking (including Randy Smyth's mainsheet for instance and I saw a mast come down right behind me). Second day was much lighter wind but the chop had only moderated slightly and the seaweed was all over the place! They are using a "number tag" system here to keep track of all the boats for safety reasons and if you forget to take your tag with you or forget to put it back on the board within a time limit that evening you get a 20% penalty (Nobody forget the safety issue on the first windy day but @ 8 people, including yours truly <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />, did on the second light air day). That hurt me since that had been my best race to that time. On the last race yesterday (race 4) the wind was dying, the chop was still up and the weed was same or worse- I'm talking clumps the size of basketballs! THAT will slow anybody down! I ended up worrying more about dodging weed than trying to keep the optimum course! It was a long day and apparently a fairly large number of people (NOT including me this time!) , having been lapped by the likes of Glenn and Lars, etc. got confused and "finished" by sailing through the finish line and going in vs through the gates and back on around the course. I know I was surprised up the last upwind leg to suddenly have so few boats behind me <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />!!!
The RC did not penalize these boats, only the ones who "confessed".
Today the weed was gone, the sea was less choppy but the air was light and dying all the way around the course. The RC got the timing wrong on the first start, then a bunch of boats jumped the gun so general recall and finally got it right the third time. I finally got a decent start and went right and ended up rounding A just in front of Jay Glaser (and most of the fleet) so I was stoked to say the least! The conditions were the closest to my "usual" sailing so I think that explains it- of course I slowly slipped back- mostly on the second upwind leg where the wind kept clocking and I kept tacking on the "layline" only to find I had to tack yet again! Still was my best result to date. Wind ended up dying to practically nothing- they sent us to the beach to wait- At 3:00 they finally decided to cancel the second race (the A Cat World Championship sailing instructions are very specific- you cannot start a race after 4PM for instance. You cannot shorten a course and you cannot make up a race.). So, at most we will have 3 more races- 2 tomorrow (and weather here is supposed to be @ 10 knots so should happen) and then 1 Friday (but the forecast is for 20-25 knots then and class rules won't allow a race to start in winds over 22 knots OR to continue if the average wind is over 22 knots for 15 minutes before the first boat finishes- so that may not happen). Five races constitute a championship so if we have no more races there will be a champion for this regatta!
Scuttlebutt is Matt will be building Peter Cogan's "Alien" A cat hulls- these are the ones Peter and Ben Hall are sailing on. Ben's wing is, of course, very cool but has not proven to be the "killer" yet.
Well, off to bed!
Kirt <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
