2024 Cut Channel Race
We had a very light air race for the Cut Channel Race at FBYC. With only 4 of us on the boat – Todd, April, Tony and Jon we managed the boat in the light air without too much difficulty.
At the start, we set the spinnaker for the mostly downwind leg in the bay while the wind switched on us a couple of times. We had some confusion about the course and didn’t end up too far off course, but got behind the rest of the fleet, and stayed to the north and up current. As a result of being behind the wind filled from the north west and carried us past most of the fleet. We reached back and forth in pressure trying not to get ahead of the puff to keep our momentum. We rounded in second right behind Corryvreckan to head mostly upwind for 4 miles into the Rappahannock.
Again we stayed north of Corryvreckan and Afterthought and made some good gains while the wind filled. Once it started to drop as we entered the Rappahannock, it got squirrelly with current and Afterthought and Corryvreckan slipped by us.
After 5 hours of sailing, as we were going by Stingray Point Light and re-entering the Piankatank, the time limit expired despite doing the shorter course. No boats finished the course and all headed back to the dock. It was a fun day of sailing and did pretty well with only 4 us. We learned some things about the boat and had some good stretches of actually sailing our targets where we really got the boat dialed in.
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