2015 FBYC Offshore Spring Series #3

This was the 3rd day of racing for No Quarter in FBYC’s Spring Series. There was a little wind – and a LOT of fog.

In the first race we had a good start – in fact it was too good and we were over early and had to dip and restart.  Inevitable was punched out and never looked back.  We closely trailed E.L.E. all the way around and settled for 3rd of the five J/70s.  This was Ron and Katie’s first time on a J/70 and they settled in pretty well learning the location of everything and the coordination.

Unlike the first race where the fog lifted enough to see most of the course – the fog came in and got pretty dense just as we were starting the 2nd race.  Upwind we had a feel for where the mark would be and just stayed in the center of the course – keeping an eye on the bigger boats that had electronics and watching them ghost in and out of the fog bank.

We were lucky to find the top mark pretty easily.  We weren’t so lucky in finding the leeward mark.  We ended up missing it by 3/4 mile to the east and ended up sailing almost a mile past it before the RC finally radioed a location for us to beat back to.  By the time we found the leeward mark – the J/70 that had stayed on the course was just about finishing and were racing one other boat right next to us.  The other two retired.  We persevered thanks to having chart plotting software on my iPhone.  Even with the fog it was still pretty good sailing conditions and definitely made it more fun by adding a navigational element to a 1.25nm buoy race.

RESULTS