Wed Night Race Interim Series
The Race from Wild Turkey and Orcrist Point of View:
A very "Spring-like" Wed, with threatening skies. Wind fairly fresh from the N at 6pm. Another great turnout for the Seattle Olson fleet! Aliens, Lunchbox, Bad Dog, Wyewacket, Mojo, RoadRunner, Turkey, Orcrist...no Enigma or Surfer Girl this race. Wind shot a while before race is true Northly wind, blowing about 14. By the time we start its lightened considerably. A big flood tide is flowing. The left looks much better. We start about mid line, great start. I think Bad Dog is using a #2. Lunchbox and Roadrunner at the boat end. On the first beat boats go all over the place. Wyewacket executes a perfect tack on top of Orcrist while crossing us, and we have to foot down to get out of their dirt. We are reeling in Roadrunner. At the first windward mark, the fleet is close. Aliens rounds 2 boatlenghts ahead, Roadrunner rounds 1 boatlength ahead, and we round with two more Olsons behind us. Leeward leg goes without much fanfare, Mojo again shows great speed downwind. First leeward mark rounding turns out to be "make-or-break" for the entire fleet. There is a huge hole at the mark, and Orcrist, Turkey, and some other boats get sucked into it when they dont tack immediately after the rounding. This costs easily 40 boatlenghts. Lunchbox horizon job, as usual. Orcrist moves from 6th to 8th. Turkey moves from 2nd or 3rd to 7th? The next beat consists of getting out of bad wind on the right had side of the course to good wind. The last run is long, and the wind goes completely East halfway down the course. Everyone goes to whites to get to the leeward mark. The windward finish is a struggle, and the boats that had lost on the last two legs (Orcrist, Wyewacket, et al.) gain considerably here to finish only 10 or 20 boatlengths back, after all that.
This has been the third or fourth week in the last 6 that the wind has really done some radical shifts over the course of the race. Very challenging conditions for everyone.
Sound Interim Wednesday Race 1
Sound Interim Wednesday Race 2
Sound Interim Wednesday Race 3
Sound Interim Wednesday Race 4
Sound Interim Wednesday Race 5