Spring Off Soundings                                   by Claudia Kondracky Every Off Soundings has it's own problems and challenges. For this year our boat had a dozy! A member of our team has a boat that he wants to race. We decided to do Wednesday nights with Mentor and the ECSA races aboard his. His boat arrived in Connecticut last year sometime. We spent the winter talking it up, finding a spot for her and getting electrcuted while doing a rail on her! The good news was that the boat looks good and has a fun rating which would put us in another division. Bad news was that the engine needed to be rebuilt or something like that. I don't listen when the conversation goes to engines. Our mind set for this Off Soundings was to suck! This way we could transfer to the other boat for the Fall Off Soundings with no damage done.  Friday greeted the sailors with a hot day and the fog burning off. We hoped the wind would stick around. We thought that once the fog burned off we would fry. The forecast called for hot, humid and hazy. What we got was cold, wind and wet. I almost didn't even bring any foul weather gear but at the last minute I decided to. Instead of a heat index to worry about, we had wind chill! The start of the race had the usual fun, about 100 boats checking the course, each other and the wind. Reading the course always seems to be a challenge. It said 4B. Once we figured out that this was a shot to 1BI and then leeward with an upwind finish. We were the third start at 10:10. We were close at the line and were bring brought up by another boat who got an overlap but couldn't close the door on us. Once the gun sounded, they had to sail their proper course and the issue was settled then and there. We stayed right with just Marionette higher. We protected that right all the way up to 1BI. The wind built and we had a passing shower. Sorry, 4 hours of rain is no longer a passing shower, it rain! We have a great reefing system and the reef was put into the main and out of if too many times to count. We thought about switching to the number two head sail but decided not to. It was a great sight at 1BI with the faster boats catching up and everyone verging on the mark. We rounded and put the chute up. We watched some interesting spinnaker work but we felt very comfortable with our reaching chute up and the reef out. Watching the other boats is an important factor in sailboat racing. It tells you what the wind will be doing and how the other boats are handling it. It also allows you to see whether it will be a starboard or port pole set.  Once the spinnaker is set and pulling all eyes should be very aware of their surroundings. What is happening behind you will be what will be happening to you and what is happening in front of you can determine what to do next.  We also watch to see the boat take down their chutes to determine how and when we will take ours down. When the wind is at your back it's more difficult to feel it build. Watching the boats rounding ahead of you will point out mistakes that you don't want to make. We saw a lot of boats over powered by the wind and decided to put the number 2 sail up and got it ready on deck. We also decided to do a windward takedown and discussed everyone's job. The chute was gathered to windward, the halyard released and the spinnaker came in and down. Meanwhile the number 2 was up and pulling and the boat was tuned to go upwind. The number two proved to be the right choice and once again the reef was put in and taken out as needed. We short tacked the beach finding a good breeze and the currents in our favor. We decided to go for the pin end of the line and worked the tacks out to finish there. In spite of our best efforts we won our division. I decided I didn't want any part of this team and refused to sail on Saturday. Mark will be doing the Saturday race and wrap up. Right now he's getting ready for the Marion to Bermuda race. I'll be in charge of the website next week. I'm thinking dancing monkeys and the top five things driving Mark crazy right now. Here's one of them, two of the guys aboud the Marion to Bermuda boat are bring their scurb gear with the weights!