today was a good day
OG Moose McClintock didn’t even have to use his AK…
Finally, good starts and good finishes, and deserved. At least a little bit. Gordy stepped up in a big way and got us right on the line both starts (first raced we started bow to chainplate with Ingham who was BFD), we were able to use some speed (and I’d like to say smarts but it’s still too early to talk about stuff like that) to pop a 1,2. And no rain.
Both races were tough. The first race started with small jibs (though we knew we should have been in the big jib), we hooked a good start and were able to tack right into the great current (cool thing here, the current is all based on where the highs and lows are, the current flows from low to high, the high went south last night so instead of the northerly current of the last week, it went south), we were able to overcome about 10 degrees of pin bias to come across the left side and round first. We did a quick change to the big jib in the way downwind, as did most of the fleet, and though there were a lot of anxious moments downwind (I’ll stop whining at some point) and a tricky beat where we hooked to the right again for current, though slightly out of phase, we managed to maintain ahead of Tony Parker, who came with us to go from 5 to 2 on the beat. Good day for ugly Americans.
The 2nd race was nerve wracker, we missed a little trying to be smart and were pinned going to the left, away from the good current. We weren’t quite able to hang with Ian Southworth, who popped out form a pretty good start from the left side, though we weren’t able to quite hang with him we both did some fancy swerving to get around a group from the right, Ian rounded right behind a Japanese team in first, we slid into 3rd (don’t ask how, shit happens), we both rolled the Japanese and then we followed Ian around for 2nd. It was a particularly tough race for both Ingham and Parker, they were stuck left and never recovered. Casale, who was probably lying around 2nd gong into that race, also fell victim to the squirrelly breeze which leaves Southworth in 2nd, I think.
I haven’t looked at results yet, that superstitious thing……I’ve told anyone that asks that I’ve been in far bigger collapses, I hope we can hold on. Tomorrow is forecast to be light and weird, I hope that’s not right, we go well in breeze, in light stuff we have to think a lot more and that’s where things go bad. Hopefully I’ll give you a good report tomorrow.
Title with apologies to Ice Cube
