2012 District 12 Championship: Sunday
The forecast for the last day of the Laser District 12 Championship was for light air and as we were sailing out to the race course we had great wind – 10-12 knots. By our 10am start it had dropped at bit and it continued to go down from there. Today was a basically a two-boat race. Unless I put up two DFLs it would have been hard not to get 2nd place. Once a drop would be factored in, I was effectively 1 point behind John Potter, so it would come down to today’s races as to who won the regatta.
In our first race today I had a crummy start – I just about won the boat, but had no boat speed at the start. John was to leeward of me and was a boat length and a half ahead when I crossed the line. I took a big duck and headed out right while he sailed to the left. Wanting to consolidate I came back to the middle having made up some ground, but John tacked on me and forced me back to the right. On the middle right of the course I had better pressure and got in front of John, but the boats who went left did much better than us putting me around 6th and John several boats behind me by the time we rounded.
Downwind John caught up a few boats and on the 2nd upwind I stuck to the middle of the course while John went to the left. When we got to the top 3rd of the course a 50-degree righty came in and I laid the mark while John out to the left still had to tack to fetch it. At the mark there was one boat between us and downwind I worked to pass one boat on the way to the finish. With two boats between us that put me 1 point ahead of John.
After the race we sat on the course for half an hour with no prospect of wind and the race committee abandoned racing for the rest of the day and I won the District 12 Championship Regatta. Not only was John great competition this weekend, but so were sailors such as Rob Bowden who would have beat both John and I had he not been OCS twice. All in all it was a fun regatta and I got to visit a an awesome club who put on a great and I got meet a lot of new District 12 sailors.
Results | My Photos | CSC Photos by Joe Reyes
All but the last photo courtesy of Joe Reyes