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Coral Reef Cup Day three

Posted 8 months, 17 days ago

Coral Reef Cup Day three
One of our weaknesses was having a good first race. Going into the last day the standings were very tight. Buddy Cribb was leading with 13 points, we had 14 points, George Andreas had 15 points and Jeff Padnos had 18 points. We needed to have a good day to move into first. To have a good first race we spoke with Bruce Burton who is a former world champion and arranged to tune up before the first race on Sunday. We went out early and tuned up in the light air. We realized quickly that we were set up for about 2-3 knots more breeze than we had. The forecast was for light air in the morning and a building breeze in the afternoon. We wanted to set up for the light stuff. After going up wind on both tacks for about 25 minutes we turned back toward the starting area and made our adjustments. When we arrived back in the starting area we spoke with Bruce and set up a split tack session for 5 minutes. We find these very valuable to determine the favored side of the course for the first beat. We were not doing this often enough during the Jaguar series and the first two days of the Coral Gable Regatta. We determined that the course was even or a bit left favor but neither side was heavily favored. The race committee started the first race on time. Five boats that were still sailing out in the light conditions did not make the start. We chose the right side since we felt the trend during the day was to go right. After the start we saw the breeze starting to fill on the right. Our competition was going left so we hoped we had pick it correctly. We tacked short of the layline and were lifted right up to the mark. At the mark we jibed and had about a 10 boat length lead. The race committee changed the course for he second beat. The beat was very shifty with up and down pressure. Our strategy was to stay point at the mark and to not get too close to the edges. We held our lead and finished first. We moved into first by one point. After the first race the Race Committee tried to start a second race in very light conditions. They postponed the race at the start due to a big shift. Then they rolled into a postponement and finally abandoned for the day. Winning the last race put us into first place for the regatta. All the hard work of setting up the new boat and tuning paid off. Full Story »

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