2024 Open House Regatta
We had a nice day for the Open House Regatta with a light breeze out of the east that eventually built to the double digits. Jess and I were sailing aboard Todd’s J99 Battle Rhythm with me doing pit and her trimming the main.
The course would take us from Godfrey Bay out the Piankatank near Stingray Point and back up the river around a mark and then up into a finish in Fishing Bay. The first part of the race was mostly upwind while the 2nd half of the race was mostly downwind.
It was a progressive start race meaning the slower boats start first and the faster boast start last. We were the 2nd to last to to start and as we sailed east on the 2nd leg of the course we started to catch up to a group of boats. We hoisted our spinnaker to head from Piankatank 8 to FBYC B and passed most of them. On that first spinnaker hoist we had a sheet run incorrectly and had to just muscle hold it while we re-ran the lazy sheet as the new sheet and didn’t loose much ground.
By the time we got to FBYC-B we had Sting, Wendas and the Thistle ahead of of. We passed them by the time we got to back to Piankatank 8, but were only just ahead of Sting. We split with Sting and went North while they went south and after crossing we went south as we went north as we worked our way downwind to the west up the Piankatank. They stayed in better pressure of Stove point and were just ahead of us by the time we got to 12. We had a cleaner rounding, came out higher and had a little more speed to be just ahead of them at the finish and get the gun.
