. .

Monday, March 15, 2010

2010 Lawson Reef Race...

This last weekend was the running of the annual AYC Lawson Reef Race - the race is from the west entrance of Guemes Channel down Rosario Strait to the Lawson Reef buoy, then across Rosario Strait to the west channel marker and return to the start.  In total the race is about 19 nm - not very long!

For this event we had a lot of new crew joining us - for many of them both the boat and our systems were new.  Our plan was to use this race as a training run, plus use it to test out our new 3Di J3.

Winds were SE 15-20 and very blustery close to shore.  We were the start boat so we started 10 minutes after the rest of the fleet.  We set the J3 & full main and beat out to the Lawson Reef buoy with a 2.00 knot ebb pushing us.  At the Lawson Reef buoy we turned west and set the A3 kite.  Just before the west channel marker we doused the kite and jibed onto our course to the finish.  In the run to the finish we jib reached which then turned to a beat near the finish.

We completed the event in 1:54 with an average speed over 10 knots - unfortunately this was only good enough for 3 out of 4 in our class and 8th overall - somewhat predictable given the favorable currents and the short race.

In retrospect we should have kept the A3 up on the run home, peeled to the A5, and then jib reached to the finish - this would likely have saved about 10-12 minutes and considerably improved our finish position.