race report
| home contact us movies galleries stories store |
 IODs Youngster (foreground) and Fjaer. ©2013 norcalsailing.com |
|
Hüsker Dü
February 18, 2013 Do you remember the good things in life? Saturday's Rob Moore Memorial Regatta at the Corinthian Yacht Club was about remembering how currents work and how to make your boat go fast in zero to ten knots of breeze. With the normal wind direction at the Gate flipped and coming from the northeast, the race committee started the boats at Knox downwind to either Blackaller or Ft. Mason buoy depending on the speed of your division.
After a nice romp around Blackaller, the multihulls and big boats headed for Blossom Rock as their leeward mark, and it was there that they found a wind hole and got stalled out while being pushed to the South Bay on a building flood. The smaller boats had the Ft. Mason buoy as their leeward mark, and although the breeze was light, they were able to get around cleanly and head back across the Slot toward Tiburon.
Because of the length of the courses, all the boats converged in the Angel Island Triangle, where the currents and fluky winds played with the crews minds and tempers as they made slow progress back to the club. And let's not forget the always entertaining Elephant Rock offset mark in the bowels of Raccoon Strait with its weird currents and shifty wind. If it wasn't for a narrow band of katabatic wind miraculously wafting off of Angel Island all hope might have been lost.
"It's a crapshoot," said Ian Matthew of the C&C 29 Siento el Viento. "You had to be in the right place at the right time. But that's Corinthian. That's why we keep coming."
Sunday got brighter sunshine and a little more wind, now coming from the south, allowing the RC to set off traditional upwind starts to Blackaller for the windward mark. This time the big fast boats had a twice around course using Harding Rock as the leeward mark, then back to the traditional finish area at the club. The smaller boats got a shorter, one-lap course.
The wind in the Slot was a nice 10-15 knot cold blast from an approaching storm, and although it seemed to be everywhere it couldn't quite make it to Raccoon Strait, and thus set up what should have been a carbon copy of Saturday's approach to the finish. Some boats remembered about Saturday and found all the right shifts and positive current to push them home to a win. Others forgot the lessons from the previous day and got stalled out again. But all should remember that we've got a good thing going on.
For all the results, see www.cyc.org.
|
