January 31, 2019
It was a day of “almosts” today. On the score board the scores don’t look fantastic, but we are really happy with how things felt while we were sailing. We ended the day with a 15, 19 putting us in 13thposition overall going into the last day of fleet racing.
We were on the later start which we thought meant we were going to get solid wind and 4 fast fun races off. We only got two off before the wind died and the races were called for the day around 4pm.
The first race was the windiest race of the regatta so far. It was around 10-12 kts when we started with a nice little chop coming down the bay. We had a good start on port tack and headed out to the right hand side of the course because that’s what we thought was going to be the favored side. There was every indicator that it would be given the big black cloud on over there, but unfortunately it didn’t work out as much as we had hoped and rounded the top mark in 21st. We sailed quite well from there and picked up boats on every leg to finish 15thoverall. This was our first race where we passed boats on every leg in a race, so that was a great feeling to have.
From there, the wind was on its downwind trend. We had another great start, this time in the middle of the line on starboard. We felt fast and pulled out on all the boats around us. We sailed a good beat and managed to get to the top mark in about 6th-8thplace. Unfortunately, as we rounded the mark and I was hoisting the spinnaker halyard, my halyard and sheets tied themselves in a huge knot somehow and we ended up sailing a little slow for about a minute. This cost us a lot of boats at the time and put us well back in the fleet from where we were. We were able to climb back up on the second beat, but then on the last leg, the wind really started to fade and we lost out to a few boats at the finish because the boats that went the other way downwind got a little more breeze back towards the finish line.
Overall, we were happy with how the boat felt. We felt fast through the water both upwind and downwind. We had some really good tactical calls, and great starts in both of the races. We also had a few mistakes that cost us some points, which is frustrating, but in a way I’m glad they are happening now so we can learn from them and keep getting better.
Tomorrow they have scheduled 4 races for us starting at 10am. The forecast is for lighter winds again, which I’m kind of excited about. You can follow along with the scores here!
Thank you for your continued support
Anna and Paris
Henken | Tobias Sailing 