| the 2008 Rock Hall
Weekend Sunday 21 June - 2 pics mostly by Uncle Al ... |
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| Race 6 (Sunday's first):
Conditions very much like yesterday's - not the best winds we've ever
had at Rock Hall. - click here for full-size pic ... |
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| click here
for full-size pic ... |
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| John and Dolores de Boer (l) on their way to a fine 2nd in
race 6. ... |
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| Dottie Holoubek (38) threads her
Laser upwind through the oncoming fleet. ... |
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| wall-to-wall Wayfarers?? (l to r) Frank, Richard, Jim,
Tony, John, Andy/Mark, Marc - click here for full-size pic ... |
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| click here
for full-size pic ... |
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| Jim and Mark (2458) make their
move on John and Dolores. ... |
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| Doing extremely well without a
chute are ... - click here for full-size pic ... |
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| ... Andy Douma and Mark Banyai
(555). ... |
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| The duel continues. ... |
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| John (7351) is in an excellent
controlling position here, being not only leeward but starboard which means Jim (2458) can't safely gybe until John chooses to let him. ... |
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| Despite this ancient,
small-looking chute (38), Frank and Sarah Pedersen are giving Tony and
Casey a good run for their money here. ... |
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| Marc and Julie help make life
easier for their chute by heeling to windward on this run. ... |
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| Very nice form!! ... |
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| The last of
Uncle Al's Sunday sailing shots: Jim (2458) just squeaks in ahead of
Tony to take Wayfarer 3rd in Race 6 behind John de Boer and Uncle Al.
Meanwhile, Arthur Anosov and Danny Florianovich (r) have just kept their Windmill
string of perfection alive with yet another win. Arthur and Danny would
win the 7th and final Windmill race, also, to end up with a perfect
score. Going into an 8th Wayfarer race, Al and Nick were poised to go
the Windmill winners one better, having ground out consistent if
unspectacular wins in the first seven Wayfarer heats all of which Nick
and Al led most of the way. Race 8 was to prove a different story, as
Al and Nick got trampled on the first beat of a once-around
windward-leeward course. They rounded onto the run in 6th place out of
a fleet of 9 W's (Richard and Michele having foregone the finale to get
a timely start on a long trip home to Charlotte, NC). With Tony, John and the other leaders pushing each other up to windward of the rhumb line on starboard tack, Al went for clear air by gybing to port right after rounding onto what was a pretty square run. Ever the optimists, Al and Nick expected to catch at least one or two boats, and realized that by going left early, they would have the additional bonus of right of way (and buoy room) as the fleet reconvened near the leeward mark - always provided they caught somebody. Sticking close to the rhumb line by going up in lulls and down with the puffs, SHADES was nicely positioned when a long, somewhat backed puff come along. After gybing back to starboard, we were in a nice little wind streak, which we sailed down with, about 10° low of the rhumb line - on the assumption that the the puff couldn't last forever and that when it did run out, being low of the mark would let us sail higher and faster towards the mark than the boats to windward who would be on a slow dead run at that crucial pre-rounding time. We would also be inside any boats we might end up overlapped with. Of course, if the wind swung back the other way, that shift would favour the right-side boats, but luckily for us, that did not happen. In the event, Nick and I rounded 2nd, just ahead of early leader, Tony, and about two lengths astern of John and Dolores who had passed Tony on the run. Going into about 5 knots of breeze to start the final beat to the finish, Nick and I decided to sort of cover John from astern: We tacked away only a few lengths to clear our air and then tacked back to let the boat-speed testing duel begin. Known to be fast upwind in these conditions, John was the perfect boat for us to test against. Whenever John tacked, we did, too, and the tweaking of settings continued. Perhaps a quarter-mile from the finish, we finally pulled even and then ahead. Of course, life was easy for Nick and me: we had no pressure on us, having already clinched the series, and we had just completed an excellent run, whereas John and Dolores had to be feeling the pressure as they and Jim Heffernan with Mark were in a dog-fight over series 2nd. ...
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