Regatta Report
8/17/2005 - 470 North American Champs Race Day 4 (Final Day)
The forecast had called for winds lighter than normal for San Francisco Bay, and today the wind never peaked over 12 knots. We also found that there was a large container ship splitting the upwind beat which forced everyone to make a decision to stay to the right or take a chance and sail around it all the way to the left corner.
Race 1
We sailed a trapezoid outer-loop course in 7 knots of wind. We got a good start at the boat but where forced to tack. We then had to duck two boats who managed to hold their position on our hip. A hundred yards after ducking those two, we tacked back to starboard and rode it all the way to the port lay-line to the first windward mark. We rounded the mark in 3rd. On the downwind, we passed both the boats in front of us to round the leeward mark in 1st with a 10 boat length lead, but on the second upwind, the wind shifted right with more velocity. We were caught on the left side of the course, so we dropped back to third place again. On the last downwind leg we passed one boat to finish 2nd in the race.
Race 2
Race 2 was sailed on a trapezoid outer loop course in 7-9 knots of wind. We saw that the left was usually advantaged early in the leg, so we started at the pin end of the line. The left came in as we had expected, but we had a decision to make—which side of the anchored container ship should we pass? We choose to pass on the outside of this large obstacle and gained more on the fleet to round the first windward mark in 3rd place. We again found our downwind speed and passed the leaders on the downwind to round in first. We rounded the last windward mark first but two teams were right on our tail. One of them an American boat began to match-race us, so our two teams were quickly out of the contention for first place. Halfway down the leg, they passed us on an inside puff, but then we responded by taking a higher and faster angle to roll them again, and we held onto 2nd place.
We finished 5th overall in the regatta and 2nd American team. This was the last event before the World Championships, also in San Francisco. We will be training this next week for the racing which begins on Monday.
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