2014 FBYC One Design Invitational
Saturday brought beautiful weather for Fishing Bay Yacht Club’s One Design Invitational Regatta. Sailing were Front Runners and San Juan 21s with another boat sailing Portsmouth handicap. I sailed a Front Runner and had Alan Williamson crewing with me on his first time sailing.
The wind started out light – which was perfect for us as we found our way around the boat and learned the routines of the maneuvers to get the sails up and down as we went around the course. Luckily the other boats had some new crew too so we all were getting up to speed at the same time. As a result the racing was close throughout.
We did 5 races with winds building from 5-11 and staying pretty consistently out of the east. Our race course as a windward-leeward 1/4 mi legs set just west of the end of Stove Point.
In the first 3 races we were up and down putting up a 3-1-3. I won the boat a couple times at the start, but never seemed to be able to live there with the other boats below us out-pointing us, so we had to tack out and make more tacks making it harder to catch up. In the races we did well in, I was closer to the pin and was able to foot and go fast and do less tacks. We also made sure to setup on the laylines early to give ourselves plenty of time to prepare for the roundings.
Going into the last race we were tied for 1st and it was a longer 3-lap race. We were close to Matt Lambert all the way around the course and more than once he tried to stick it to us and almost succeeded. But we were able to get through the turns quickly and use the favored positions to stay just ahead and win the race putting us in 1st overall and 2 points ahead of 2nd.
It was a lot of fun having Alan aboard and getting to show him sailing and racing and the level of athleticism and effort needed to do it well. He was a quick study and really helped get us around the course fast.
Thanks to Parker Garrett and the race committee for running the races today! We could have asked for a better day all the way around. And thanks Matt Braun for loaning me the boat to sail.
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