The 3rd Annual Regatta For Research
Racing for Women's Health
October 30 & 31
By Claudia Kondracky
This past weekend was the Regatta for Research, Racing for Women's Health. Saturday's weather was a bit gray and we had some drizzle. I dressed in full foul weather gear with even my helmet hat on. It proved to be the right choice. The miff around my neck was pulled up to cover my nose and occasionally dry my glasses off.
Ed and I were as usual the last Blue Jay off the dock. We sailed out to the start line and tried to figure out the course and where we wanted to be and when. The usual suspects were out there. There was Pierre and Claudia Number 1. They have Bill Bell's old boat, Blue Blood. The Bell's are somewhere warmer, sailing and living aboard their boat. Chris Mars had his daughter Emma. She's 12 and not too sure about this sailing stuff yet. Sandy Sandstorm joined us. He had his son Jason. Jason has grown about three feet since I last saw him. And of course Ed and I, Claudia Number 2 were out there too.
The course was the usual WP or WPA. Our first race was WP and we were the last class to start. Chris had a great race and took first with us a distant second. We knew the challenge would be to beat him. We had a lot of races this day. If Chris didn't win them, we did. After about the fourth race Ed and I decided that we could suck on Saturday and win it on Sunday. A couple of interesting things happened on the course. With six fleets sailing in a relatively close area every once in a while the fleets overlap. This happened at the leeward mark. We had some 420's rounding, the lasers coming down and a couple of the JY's there too. It's always interesting to be yelled at by a different class. But rules are rules and and an inside overlap gets you in and around the buoy even if you're a slow Blue Jay. We ended the day with Chris and crew with 8 points and Ed and I had 9.
Sunday weather forecast called for sun and mild temperatures but breezy. I have to comment about the weather forecasters, guys, give us the wind speed. Anyway, I got to Ed's to find him taking a nap. I guess he had a great time at the party Saturday night with his lovely wife Marsha. While I went home and had cup-a-soup with aspirin, Ed danced and partook in the free wine and beer. I told him that I wasn't going to show him any mercy!
The wind indicator in Essex Yacht Club said the average wind speed was 9. We decided that this indicator must be buried underground because it was a lot harder than that. I was guessing gusts up to 20.
We sailed to the start line and watched an early victim of the wind. A Laser was being towed in with a broken rig. Another boat, either a JY or 420 was by Knot's Island over too. The hardest part of getting your overturned boat up is keeping it up. We watched as the boat came up and went down on the other side. This is very tiring for the crew.
The first race was WP, the line was long and the pin end was favored. It was hard to hear the horns on Fair and Square, so we held off before the start as to not be over early. Chris and crew had a great start but the boats were tightly packed together. I was telling Ed who was doing what so we could determine what we would do. A couple of hard gusts hit us and could have sent us for a swim. We made the windward mark rounding after Chris.
Going downwind is always a challenge. I'm down on the leeward side of the boat flying the jib. I can't remember a time when Ed and I were overtaken going down wind. I use to fly the spinnaker aboard Mentor during the summer and fly this jib much in the same way. Anyway, I was to leeward, elbows almost in the water trusting Ed would counter balance the boat with his weight. I could feel the boat accelerate under me through the puffs. It was great. We jibbed at the next mark and headed up river. Chris and crew were still ahead of us. At the next mark we had closed the distance but were still behind. We tacked right away and Chris covered us. We also had two other boats that could win if we didn't play this right. We decided that Chris was too far ahead and covered the rest of the fleet. We came in second. The next race proved even more challenging.
The gusts were very shifty and hard to predict. I was wet. My foul weather gear that I knew would fail, did. To make matters worse I wore jeans under them. If you don't sail in foul weather you may not know that jeans wont dry once they get wet. It's a poor choice to wear. Oh well, I'm wet and Ed is hung over. The second race we also came in second. I decided that we had to get the donuts for the race committee off the boat, maybe they were bring us bad luck. We called a crash boat over and handed them off. Then they started yelling NO, No, No, we thought at us. Well, when someone yells you naturally look at them. We didn't see the 420 on port coming down on us. They hit us hard on the port side and cracked the hull. Luckily it was above the water line. Ed decided to go in after that. Our day was done. Congratulations to all who stayed out there. It was a great day and, of course, the party was fun too.
