2013 FBYC Fall One Design Invitational
It was a bit of a drifter for most of the Fishing Bay Yacht Club Fall One Design Invitational. We had 6 Lasers out for the 3rd of our 4-race series.
After a bit of a delay we finally started a race in about 4 knots out of the west. The course was just on the outer edge of Fishing Bay and still inside of Stove Point. The wind proceeded to die to a knot or less. Suddenly what is usually a very light current became a big deal. In fact – I’ve never even thought to play the current that much in that location so far away from the Piankatank channel.
Luckily I was far enough behind the leaders – Brad Squires and Luke Hayes on the downwind that I could see how they were getting swept out of Fishing Bay and out into the bay. I played it conservatively by heading up into the bay and letting the current pull me down to the mark. When Luke was swept past the mark and couldn’t go upwind against the current to get back to it, I slipped in ahead of him and finished the last upwind just behind Brad.
The .6 mi race took us over an hour. We sat for at least another hour and by 2pm we started to see signs of a sea breeze. We moved the course out into the river a bit more so the windward mark was just outside of Stove Point. It was still shifty, but at least we were able to sit out and almost hike at times. I didn’t have a great upwind and had to settle for a 4.
Since we were past the time limit for more racing and we still had some wind, Mike Toms and Ron Jenkins and I sailed out towards Gwynn’s Island to get a little upwind speed testing it.
It probably wasn’t the best day for racing, but since I haven’t sailed the boat in a month and I’m about to do 3 weekends in a row of racing, it was just what I needed to get back into the boat.
RESULTS (pdf)