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Toronto Sailing & Canoe Club * August 19-20  Saturday: Race 4.1 photos by Gord Nikaido, Rob Williams & Boris Kuzmin |
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Just seconds before the start
of Saturday's final race, which would turn out to be the last race of
our 2006 North Americans. Al and Marc saw no reason to change their
race plan from race 3, namely go left for the George Blanchard shift.
But Al (3854) has failed to execute his starting strategy which was
clear air about 2/3 down the line towards the pin. Instead he will
likely be buried, barring a miracle. No such problems for
...
... |
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| ... Alastair who is already moving at full speed in the
direction we all want to go. To windward of Alastair, Mark (7673) got
quite a good start, but alas, not quite good enough to escape
Alastair's backwind. ... |
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| Here we can see Mark dropping back already. Al (3854)
meanwhile, is embarrassingly far back but it could be worse ... ... |
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| ... we could be down here where Heider is being
blanketed by a wall of sails. ... |
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| Ted and Colin have just tacked to ... ... |
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| ... clear their air but are now sailing away from the
GB shift. ... |
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| Still, clear air is
nice! ... |
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| Lori's turn to helm this time, and she too, is off in
clear air. Surprisingly, Alastair has tacked away from the George
Blanchard shift despite his perfect start to go and get that shift, and
... ... |
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| ... George does not seem ... ... |
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| ... impressed. ... |
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| Grigor on duty, as is ... ... |
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| ... Ken Devlin. ... |
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Near the windward mark: Most of
the leaders are using the George Blanchard shift along the port lay
line. Tommy and Stefan (60) have moved very well and have taken over
the lead from Alastair (10137) whose tack to the right was a brief
glitch in the stampede out to the left corner. On the left, we have
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... Al and Marc whom Tommy has
wisely been covering. Al is not complaining, however, since he's well
ahead of his closest series rivals, Mark and Heider, neither of whom
are in this picture. Looking excellent is Peter Kozak (2nd from right) out on the lay
line. for
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View from the port lay line:
All looking good as they approach the mark are Nick (864), Ed (825) and
Graham (upwind of Ed). Al (3854) has rounded just astern of Alastair
(10137) and is immediately diving down to defend the left side of the
run, where he will be free to gybe, should that seem advisable.
... |
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| Meanwhile, our leader, Tommy (60) is being careful not
to change course in such a way that Fred (7379) cannot keep clear. Mark
(7673) is behind a number of boats but the good news is that he's not
very far even out of first place. ... |
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| Full speed ahead for Alastair (10137) but note Al who
has clear air to leeward and is blocking any gybe to port by Alastair. ... |
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| Stefan (l)
and Tommy get a "run" for their money from Peter and Linda. ... |
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| Nick and Julie give it every effort. ... |
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| Geoff and George (9483) pursue
Mark and Paul (7673) and Hans? ... |
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| Concentration aboard Jansubar
as Geoff (r) and George work
to pass ... ... |
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| ... Graham (l) and Gary. ... |
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| Mike Codd (CAN 90) aims just to
leeward of Fred. ... |
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| The leaders, Tommy and Stefan
(60) have gybed to port, and Heider and Tom (600) prepare to ... ... |
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| ... follow suit. Which in turn
will free Kit (1037) to gybe as well towards the
leeward mark (which is somewhere behind Geoff's jib). Both will have to
keep clear of Nick (864) who
remains on starboard. ... |
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| As I recall, Marc and I (far left), at right about this
time, were bemoaning the fact that the boats on the right seemed to be
doing better than we were in the wind department. By the time we gybed
across, Tommy remained well ahead. for full-size pic, click here; then use Back button to return to this page ... |
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| Exciting racing on the right side
of the run: (l to r) Tommy.
Heider, Graham, Nick (864), Fred, Geoff ... |
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| Ed and Chris (r) enjoy
... ... |
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| ... this exciting run. ... |
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| Spinnaker takedown time for Lori and Jason as they get
set to ... ... |
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| ... gybe towards and round the leeward mark. ... |
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| A lovely spinnaker run for Ted (r) ... ... |
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| ... and Colin. ... |
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At the leeward mark, not much
has changed at the top: Tommy (60) holds a lead of several lengths over
Alastair (10137) who in turn will round just ahead of Al (3854). An
early douse for Al and Marc who want to be ready to tack towards the
Blanchard shift at the first opportunity. As I recall, we managed to
tack before Alastair here and then ever so slowly pinched him off after
he tacked to cover. In the end, we reached the left side first, but
then were easy meat for Tommy to cover us. The latter had lost very
little by holding off on his tack to the left a hundred yards or so.
Now he simply matched us in speed and pointing, and could afford to
wait for us to come to him. Near the lay line, we tacked. Tommy crossed
us by four or five lengths and sat on us. I think we threw in three or
four tacks to try to escape, but the best we could do was to keep Tommy
from adding to his lead.
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