The crew yesterday was Masha, Anna, Patrik, and I.
We came to the starting area relatively early and eyewitnessed 14 kts NW wind with gusts up to 20 kts. We questioned the spinnaker use, but the trend was easing, so we agreed to postpone the decision until the start. The sailplan was then full main and G3. The starting strategy - the downwind and gusts didn't allow to make a reliable plan, so we decided not to have any and start ad-hoc.
We started right at the gun, hoisted the spinnaker, and took a straight line toward the first green mark. We arrived there shortly after Minnamari and Lucky Too and had Charlotta closely behind us. During the leg, we considered whether it would be possible to continue the spinnaker on the next leg, but closer to the mark, the wind settled, and it became clearly possible.
So, we gybed at the mark and continued towards the next green. At the next green, we gybed again. No positions changed.
On the next leg, we took the direct course between the skerries while every other boat went through the R-G gate. They had a slightly better TWA, and we had a slightly shorter course. On the approach to Melkki, it became clear that our route was better - we gained on Lucky Too and built distance to Charlotta.
We dropped the spinnaker shortly before the next rounding mark, rounded it, and continued toward Rysäkari on sidewind course. Charlotta managed to gain on us at the beginning of the leg, but then we won the lost distance back. About halfway to Rysäkari, it became clear that Minnamari ahead of us was sailing toward some wrong mark heading too much to the left, and Lucky Too was chasing them. We corrected our course. Charlotta and Ariel behind us were pointing even higher. Ahead there was a motorboat, and soon we recognized they had an Alpha flag. We decided to pass leeward from them and were watching for diver buoys. At some point, the diver boat's skipper started to worry, and Charlotta and Ariel altered their courses to also pass the divers on the leeward side. Meanwhile, Minnamari and Lucky Too recognized their mistake and corrected the course, too.
We rounded the S mark right after Ariel, who overtook us shortly before the mark. Soon after the mark, they tacked to PORT while not having enough room for that, and we had a near-collision PORT-STBD situation. We had to open the mainsail and duck to avoid the collision. We protested, and Ariel ignored it. We soon tacked to PORT, too, because it looked like a long tack.
However, we quickly got a bad gut feeling. It was hard to tell if the wind was shifting along Rysäkari or dying on that side, but we decided not to pull the dead horse and tacked back to STBD. We soon crossed Charlotta, and that was the closest distance during the entire race. We continued to the left, and the feeling and speed improved after every minute. However, we decided not to play the corner too far. The middle of the course felt good - steady wind delivered us a good lift all the way to Rönnkobben. The whole FR2 fleet sailed via the right corner. We saw that only a few FR1 boats followed our path. We had to tack twice before Rönnkobben, and we came there well ahead of Ariel and Charlotta.
After Rönnkobben, we sailed without obstruction till the last green mark. Ariel and a 2-Tonner passed us shortly before the green mark, but we ensured that they both passed us on the leeward side.
The last leg was a difficult beat-upwind through the shifts, gusts, and lulls. In the second half of the leg, there were plenty of FR1 boats around us, and it was chaotic. One F36.7 tacked on top of us twice, even though it was not necessary. Nevertheless, we made our way to the finish line. Charlotta was 35 seconds behind us. I hadn't clocked when they rounded the last mark, but it felt that they gained on us during the last leg.
Many thanks to the crew, the RC, and the competitors.
Statistics: Posted by alex — Thu Jun 01, 2023 23:39 pm
