Chalk Talk – September 4, 2018

[MattAdministrator]

• Wind: ~8 kts from SSE
• 1 Race: W1
• 15 boats.

Vixen had a guest middle crew, Mike, and our regular bow crew, Bob. Mike is a very experienced racer, but had been away from the boat for a couple years so we spent some time before the race going over the boat handling tasks, setting the spinnaker and doing a few tacks.

Since we were over early at the start, once we restarted, we opted to sail out on starboard tack to the left side of the course for a little bit just to get some clear air. The fleet decided the right was favored based on the way the wind was filling in and all headed that way, so that freed us up if we wanted to tack back to port early. But, as we sailed to the left, the wind appeared to be filling up ahead of us and seemed to back a little, so we kept going into it. After tacking to port, we decided we had overstood the layline a little, but since we were sailing in stronger wind than the boats on the right, we made up all that we were behind after restarting plus more, and rounded the top mark comfortably ahead. We sailed back down the east side of the course, covering the majority of the fleet.

After a couple of weeks where the right side of the course seemed favored, finally the earth righted itself and the left regained its favored status.

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