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With the
Saturday forecast for rain
all day
and not much wind, our hard-working race committee
decided to give us a
third race on the Friday, even though the wind had
veered from NE to
almost
east and the whole trapezoid course had to be moved.
Because the wind
had
veered and might veer even more to the right and
because the wind was
blowing
along the south shore and should therefore be stronger
near the shore,
Anders and I decided to go right on the first beat
once again.
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Only a
few seconds to the start
gun!
Many obviously feel that the boat end is favoured!
Poor Gunnar Petersen
(4955) has been "barged out" but has done the right
thing by not trying
to force his way into the mess at the committee
boat. A risky approach
from the windward side of a crowded line for Stephan
(yellow deck) -
will
he find a spot??? Things do not look good for one of
the series
leaders,
Søren Jensen in 10212 (right)!
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At the
gun: A virtually perfect
full-speed
start for Mikael Mogensen (if he wasn't over
early!!) Stephan (4898) did find
a spot on the line in time. Joel Bøgh (8278) looks
like he's
been
caught barging but he'll still get across before
Gunnar (4955)! Uncle
Al
(9355, between 5559 and 4898) is not moving well but
is positioned
where
he wants to be - at the boat end - so that he can
tack soon after
crossing
the line, and go right. No sign of Anders Friis???
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While
Gunnar in 4955 prepares
to gybe
around the RC boat and start, the ladies in 6301,
Ulla and Elisabeth,
have
made another excellent start and are threatened
Mikael (5559) after his
perfect start. Steen Madsen (pink deck) seems to be
moving well. Whistle
is at the far end of that mess somewhere.
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and will be in great shape if the wind should back (i.e. knock starboard tack). .. |
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it doesn't seem like there's all that much wind over there!! .. |
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stay on starboard tack and continue towards the left side... .. |
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... as do
Christian Bovet
(5128), Anders
Friis (222) and Ton Jaspers (4917), while Stephan
Nandrup-Bus has
tacked
to at least clear his air. Note how Anders and Sune
keep their weight
close
together in 222 as they pick up speed to try to
recover from a bad
start.
Ton (4917) looks like his sails are in too tight
considering the light,
disturbed air in which he is sailing.
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Meanwhile
Uncle Al was sailing on a
lifted
port tack along the shore and looking pretty good -
for a few minutes.
Then even the ever optimistic Anders began to sound
concerned: "The
boats
to the left that waited much longer before tacking are
now sailing
higher
than we are - but we seem to have better
wind." Long pause...
"It
doesn't look good, Al. Now I think they have more wind
over there and
are sailing higher." After some discussion, we decided
to "bite the
bullet"
and tack across. No other boats for a long time but
then they began
crossing
us - the first far ahead, but almost everyone
at least ahead.
We
had to be in about 30th place or worse. But eventually
we made it
across
into the much better breeze...
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There was
not much to lose for
Anders and
me, so we sailed right out to the port tack lay line
(see windward mark
in photo above) and tacked there. We seemed to get
more wind than the
boats
further in and then got another rummer which didn't
improve our sailing
angle since
we were already laying the mark, but it did make life
tougher for the
majority
of the fleet which was now coming in to the mark on
starboard. When Per
Larsen and Steen Ammentorp crossed us on their way to
rounding in first
place, they were - amazingly enough - only about 100
metres ahead of
us,
and being pursued by Anders Friis (recovered from his
poor start) and
several
others. Anders and I got Whistle around in
about 7th place -
and
were ecstatic.
Not much to
do on the short reach to
the
wing mark since the wind had backed quite a bit and it
was now very
difficult
and probably not worth it, to fly the spi. And of
course the "run" had
now become a starboard tack broad reach. But perhaps
it was not "of
course",
since the leaders, Per and Steen gybed to port around
the mark, and
Anders
and Sune made a rare mistake by following them.
Leading the next group
that was about 30 m. behind Anders...
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... was
Søren Jensen who
decided
to sail high to protect his wind from Steen Madsen
and a couple of
others.
Meanwhile, Al chose to sail the rhumb line (straight
mark to mark) as
(almost)
always, and ended up with clear air in the middle
between the guys
fighting
it out on the left (Per og Anders), and the larger
group on the right
(Søren,
Steen, Mogens and Poul and maybe one or two
others)...
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and Mikael Mogensen (5559) who were also going high on starboard tack and definitely in the "hunt". |
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Having
lots of room (no other
boats nearby),
Al was nicely able to sail high in the lulls and
down with the puffs,
and
soon passed the former leaders, Per and Anders, who
had not only gone
at
a bad angle to the rhumb line but also sailed into
weaker winds. The
windward
group was still ahead, however, but sailing each
other rather high.
About
200 m. from the leeward mark, Al was having fun
watching the fight over
first place among those boats and ventured the
opinion that if he had
to
put money on it, he would bet that Steen Madsen
would round first. You
could hear the smile in Anders voice as he replied:
"And what about us??"
And sure enough...
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