2024 Capital City ILCA Regatta
We got two days of racing at the Capital City Regatta at Potomac River Sailing Association in cool conditions with plenty of wind on Saturday and not enough at times on Sunday. 9 races were sailed and James Jacob emerged as the regatta winner having won all but one race in the series in the 17 boat fleet.
Saturday saw winds in the mid-teens with gusts into the 20’s and temperatures in the mid-50’s making for a cold day. With 11 boats on the course we started a little south of the club on the Potomac River which had a lot of current that would rip down the course all day.
In the first 2 races I started slow with a bad start, but salvaged a 5th and in the second race I had a great start and stuck with the leaders to find myself in 3rd. While I was out of practice hiking, I did keep the boat moving well most of the time. With the triangle course we had two broad reaches rather than downwind.
When it came to the 3rd race – I had a good start and was just behind James on the reaches. I passed him on the 2nd reach and shortly after turning to go upwind and was leading the race when I put the main sheet in the cleat to adjust the vang. When I went to pull on the vang, the tail of it had been wrapped around the main sheet cleat and was underneath the cleated sheet. As I grabbed the vang the tail lifted up popping the sheet out of the cleat (video). The main instantly went out and I immediately flipped over backward. After a few tries I was back in the boat, but definitely going to be too cold and called it a day and missed the rest of the race and the next one.
Sunday saw some lighter conditions and slightly warmer temperatures with now 17 boats out on the course. The current was still ripping down the course just as much as it was yesterday making it a challenge of knowing when to go right and into it and when to go left and avoid it. In 4 out of 5 of the races I had decent starts and sailed with the leaders anywhere from 2 to sixth place.
In the 4th race I thought we were going to get a wind shift and I could port tack the fleet. The shift didn’t come and Tyler defended it perfectly and after I parked it behind the line, I had to let everyone go. When I finally got started the wind did shift and it was a largely a parade with very few passing lanes.
By 2 o’clock w had sailed 5 races and the wind was getting really patchy at time making it almost impossible to made headway against the current and we headed in.
Thanks to Nabeel and the RC for getting as many races as we could get in over 2 days and thanks to all of the other PRSA volunteers for the food and everything else they did to make this possible. Congrats to James, Patrick and Thomas on a well-sailed event and their podium finishes.
PICTURES | RESULTS | EVENT WEBSITE | VIDEO
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