January 30, 2019
21,4,6 was our score line today. A much better overall day both on the scoreboard and with how we felt sailing. These scores moved us up to 11thoverall. With it being a challenging day, we are happy with our scoreline for the most part.
Race 1, we had a great start and headed out to the left side of the course. We had a great lane and executed our plan, but we ended up being just a little shy of where we should have ended up and got a swallowed up by the two outside edges. We rounded around the 21stposition and were plus and minus boats the whole course until we crossed in about the same position.
Race two was much more dramatic to start with. We ended up in a tight situation on the start line and ended up losing flow and fouling a boat with about 35 seconds to go to the start. We backed out of the start line and were very slow. We had to spin a penalty circle to exonerate ourselves and after, we finally managed to get back up to speed, started on port below the whole fleet, and led to the right hand side. Right at the start, the wind had clocked right about 20 degrees so we fortunately ended up in a good position. We tacked over and crossed the boats to round the top mark in 1stplace. From there the top four boats extended on the fleet and traded positions around the course the whole race. Unfortunately, we got rolled on the last downwind leg and ended up finishing 4th in the race.
Between races the wind died down and then built back up in its original direction. So after a short postponement waiting for the wind to come back, we got back underway and in sequence.
The final race of the day I would say was our best race. We had an awesome start in the bottom 1/3 of the fleet heading out the left side of the course. We held our lane and tacked just shy of layline. We had great pressure (and by great I mean about 4-5kts) and sailed up to the top mark. We rounded in about 8-9th and made the call to do a straight set with the kite. During the downwind we recognized what the wind was doing (shifting back right like the previous race) and made our call to sail the right hand side of the course on the second upwind leg. By now the wind was getting very very light and it was all about trying to keep your boat moving up the leg. We did and passed one or two boats up the leg. We were able to round right inside the Swedish team at the top mark and get over the top of them after we gybed set. From there it was a straight shot into the finish. It was slow and challenging as there wasn’t very much wind left on the course. I had to ask Paris at one point if we were at least half way down the leg as I couldn’t see anything except out kite from where I was sitting. (Thankfully she said yes, we were over half way).
After that race, the race committee called it day for us and we headed in. We hit the shore, put the boat away, and had a debriefed the day with Coach Willie, snacking on paleo cookies and tea (made my Jo, Anna’s mom).
Tomorrow is forecast for a bit more breeze than we have seen this week. We have four races scheduled to try and catch up from the first day of racing where we only got 1 of the three scheduled races completed. We are both very much looking forward to tomorrow and are off to get a good night sleep.
You can follow the results here!
Thank you all for your continued support!
Anna and Paris
Henken | Tobias Sailing 