2012 Smith Point Race
We took Wavelength out on Saturday for the Smith Point Race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club with a short 5-person crew of Steve U, John H, John W, Rick and myself. We were sailing against 2 other PHRF-A boats and started the 42nm course at 2pm just south of Stingray Point on the Piankatank. The race started as a beat and the wind eased from 15-18 down to 10-12 by 5:30 and down to about 6 at 8pm.
For the final 5 miles to Smith Point we went east expecting the wind to go right. We found a nice lane of wind and even overstood while the boats inshore to the west were left becalmed. We rounded Smith Point around 8:30 and just as we rounded and were setting up for a broad reach under spinnaker, the wind went even further east and we ditched our plans for the spinnaker under what would now be a close reach. I drove the 2nd half of the way back and we finished around 12:30am, beating a faster J105 to the line and ending up just 13 1/2 minutes behind the winning J109 on corrected time.
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