The next morning, the remaining crew members showed up. The New York contingent got in around 2:30 am so they were "very" sharp at 7:30 in the morning. We got the boat tuned, everyone met, we weighed in 125 pounds light and we went out to go racing.
The first start was interesting. We never heard any of the horns and because of that, we started a little late. We went with the 3 while everyone else went with the #1. We had no problems, we were able to sail with everyone else. Rounding the top mark, we were right ahead of Killshot. We shut the door on him rounding the mark and he bumped into our stern pulpit. As this was the same boat that we t-boned last year, Kris yelled back, "Tag, now we're it!"
Second race, we all went for the #1 and it would be the last time for that sail during the regatta. We sailed well but the details are foggy.
I think that it was the third start where we got tangled up with Rumb Punch at the start. They were leward boat at the pin and were pushing us up. We were coming up, not fast enough for them in that they were going much much faster that us coming up from astern. A wave hit them and they come right up into our stern pulpit and also chipped off a piece from the top of our rudder. Now they were above us and they came crashing down on top of us. They bent a stantion and they bow light ended up in our cockpit, we saved it for them. This race did not go as well for us, we had lots of traction issues among the crew. So much so that after the racing for the day several crew members went shopping for new shoes. We also wrapped the chute around the headstay 2X while trying to gybe and get our crewmembers back who decided that they needed to dunk themselves in the water. We did learn from our experiences in this race and applied it to the next race where we got a 4th. We were easing the chute too far forward in the heavier breeze and it would start to ossolate and then collapse and wrap around the forestay. We realized that we do not have to ease the chute forward when it is blowing.
Race 4 we got tangled with Rumb Punch again. This time we were leward and forced them up. They then forced Rumble up and bumped into them. Rumble's backstay broke and they were awarded redress as the average of all their races. We sailed a great race. I was either this race or the next one where we rounded the weather mark first. We went left as our local guru Rusty suggested and it paid off. Downwind, we got passed but we will work on that portion of our game next.
10/19/04 Back from North American Championships
We came in 9th out of 13. We are pleased with the results. We got some new scars and also a new definition of "Barging". Hampton was a great place to have a regatta, the people were very nice and the conditions were excellent. Hustler won the championship. There was plenty of close racing throughout the fleet. We will have more in a little while.