AYC Spring Race Wrap-up

Well, the racing on Saturday was everything you would expect from a light-air shifty day where it threatened to rain.

Strangely there were only 5 boats registered in the A2 class for the AYC spring race. I don't know where everyone from the previous race went, but a few of old nemesises from last year returned to cause trouble. John White was back with his converted Beneteau and they were (as usual) on their game. Saykadoo was back out and she managed to shake off the cobwebs they had last week. Then there was Aunt Jean who came out to school us all in the first race.

In the first race, we managed to get ourselves pinned out at the start, but no worries. There are worse things than being 30 seconds late. Unfortunately, we found out too late that there was fresh air just hanging out in Whitehall Bay. It certainly looked like it was coming to us, but nope. Aunt Jean seemed to have remembered this scenario from the past and just sailed over to it. No matter that she over-stood the mark - she had air and beat us all to the windward mark by 10 minutes. Definitely a smart play for them - not so good for us.

Second race went fairly well. We managed to find the air, play the shifts and even managed to switch gears as the wind got fluky. Everything went reasonably well except Saykadoo was on fire. We simply couldn't reel them in and she managed to finish before us.

It was a small fleet, but there were no slackers. We finished 4-2 and ended up 4th. Even with a respectable 2nd, we couldn't break into the top three. It's a tough crowd out there. Saykadoo had a 3-1 and ended up 1st, so they must be happy.

Well, we did learn a few things and the practice for Block certainly won't hurt. Our spinnaker work is starting to look professional, so now we can work on down wind speed. Lastly, the beer at the dock was very cold and that always helps to heal sailing wounds.