Warnmunde-Day 3

Day 3 Warnemunde.

The only race of day 3 started with a large pin end bais. It was one of those races where the whole fleet stacks up at the pin, and it is very difficult to find a hole in the last minute if approaching on port...

Unfortunately, I approached on port, and was trying to reach down the line as quickly as I could as the holes that were avaible were quickly closing. I got caught behind my training partner who was also reaching down the line on port, and had a decision to make. I chose the best of a losing scenario, and stayed behind him so that I kept my options open. In that scenario, you do not want to develop an overlap, as if you try to go to weather, he can force you into a less then desirable spot, and if you go to leeward, you might miss out on a potential gap. I ended up a long way down the line(almost mid line), giving up a lot of distance to the guys at the pin.

My only saving grace was that I was able to take advantage of the line mid-line sag, which allowed me to immediately tack onto the favoured port tack. I made my way back over to the left side of the beat to round the first weather mark in about 6th. I then shot by a few guys on the top reach, and a couple more on the downwind to round the bottom in 2nd. Jean Baptiste had a large lead at this stage, and it was looking like I was going to get second in the race and regatta.

To my surprise, shortly after I rounded the right gate(looking downwind) he tacked before a line of pressure, which knocked him. He carried on back towards me consolidating my gain, and then tacked just back of my apparent wind, and about 4-5 boatlengths ahead. I thought the breeze was going to do a large dial left, and knew I needed to create more of a gap to get the leverage I needed to come bow even. I suspected he would put a tighter cover on me the rest of the way up the work, so we sailed into a small knock, and I tacked. He tacked with me, and I immediately tacked back left. He sailed several more lengths and then flipped back. I had the leverage I was looking for! We sailed into the first of two big knocks and he tacked away. I sailed a bit further into the second major knock, and flipped back to cross him by about 5 boatlengths the next time we converged. I managed to hold on for the rest of the race.

The RC made several attempts at starting a second race that day, and eventually got one off. I worked middle left up the first beat, and near the top of the course, it looked like it was starting to go really funky. I thought it was going to do a large dial right, but didnt want to tack over there too early, as all the top guys were out left, and if I went and it dialed back left, I would be eating some massive knocks. Fortunately, I picked the last possible opportunity to head right, making big gains on the boats from the left to round the top mark about 10th. The top reach was shifted to a run, and I could not manage to sneak by anyone. On the run(which was now a reach), I got high on the pack of 6 ahead, and then rolled over them, only to have the race abandoned just before the bottom mark.

I think it was a good decision to abandon the race, but was a bit surprised as the same thing had happened the day before; however, that race had been shortened to the bottom mark. After the abandonment, we were sent ashore as racing had been called off for the rest of the day.