Weird race tonight
Our race went very oddly tonight.
It wasn't that anything truly out of the ordinary happened, we just did a bunch of things we don't normally do all in one night. There were only three of us, as mhuot wasn't feeling too well and had crappy stuff going on at work, and our other regular guy was out of town. We can run with only three, but it's tougher, especially since one of our guys (Don) has a hard time running the port winch due to a bad shoulder. He was on the jib, and I was on the main, with Barnes as captain (as usual). We set up the 150 genoa, since it wasn't a real heavy night, but didn't want to raise it until we were close to our start, for visibility. About 12 mins before our start, the wind piped up pretty strong, so we decided that it would be prudent to swap sails to the working jib, since we only had one person running it. We actually got the sail changed in three minutes, which surprised me. I ended up doing most of the running around, but it went very smoothly. The first upwind leg (T1-1/3) went pretty well with the small sail, with the wind staying up most of the way to the mark, and we picked the correct side of the course. Then we rounded the windward mark, and discovered that the wind was dropping, and we were going to take forever to go downwind on the bitsy little sail. Barnes actually decided to change sails on that leg (!!!), so we swapped back to the 150. We got it on and ready just before the reaching mark, which was again pretty damn fast considering, and didn't lose too much ground, which was surprising. The wind continued to drop, so we were glad we switched, as we needed every bit of that sail for the last two legs. We ended up crossing third, due to one difference in tack at the end, and somewhat because we couldn't get the sail trimmed fast enough with just Don running it, but we were pretty happy with our performance considering everything that was odd about it. We did manage to hang onto third, which was nice. I thought we might get corrected over by one of the other boats, but apparently we were far enough ahead. Kismet took the gun, which was nice for them. Cinnabar corrected over them, of course, but at least they got the moral victory.
The weirdest part of the whole night was on the way back to the club. We got to the entrance to the bay, and suddenly got hit with the biggest set of wake waves I have ever seen. I mean like 5' swells, out of nowhere. In Wayzata Bay. They hit us on the quarter, so we weren't in the best position to ride through them. We got a little beat up on those, were very confused, but it settled down and we kept going (though we lost all power because the sails got swung around so bad. it was creepy!) We went a little ways further, and then got hit again, apparently by the other side of the wake (or perhaps a reflection off the shore). Those hit us from the other direction, and actually turned the boat 90 degrees, partially because Barnes was surprised by them. We came down so hard once that a wave of water came over the transom, and soaked my shoes and the main sheet. On the cruise back in! It was freaky. None of us could figure out where the damn things had come from, as there didn't seem to be any inordinately large boats out. My theory is that several biggish boats were going in the same line, and somehow amplified each others' waves.
It wasn't that anything truly out of the ordinary happened, we just did a bunch of things we don't normally do all in one night. There were only three of us, as mhuot wasn't feeling too well and had crappy stuff going on at work, and our other regular guy was out of town. We can run with only three, but it's tougher, especially since one of our guys (Don) has a hard time running the port winch due to a bad shoulder. He was on the jib, and I was on the main, with Barnes as captain (as usual). We set up the 150 genoa, since it wasn't a real heavy night, but didn't want to raise it until we were close to our start, for visibility. About 12 mins before our start, the wind piped up pretty strong, so we decided that it would be prudent to swap sails to the working jib, since we only had one person running it. We actually got the sail changed in three minutes, which surprised me. I ended up doing most of the running around, but it went very smoothly. The first upwind leg (T1-1/3) went pretty well with the small sail, with the wind staying up most of the way to the mark, and we picked the correct side of the course. Then we rounded the windward mark, and discovered that the wind was dropping, and we were going to take forever to go downwind on the bitsy little sail. Barnes actually decided to change sails on that leg (!!!), so we swapped back to the 150. We got it on and ready just before the reaching mark, which was again pretty damn fast considering, and didn't lose too much ground, which was surprising. The wind continued to drop, so we were glad we switched, as we needed every bit of that sail for the last two legs. We ended up crossing third, due to one difference in tack at the end, and somewhat because we couldn't get the sail trimmed fast enough with just Don running it, but we were pretty happy with our performance considering everything that was odd about it. We did manage to hang onto third, which was nice. I thought we might get corrected over by one of the other boats, but apparently we were far enough ahead. Kismet took the gun, which was nice for them. Cinnabar corrected over them, of course, but at least they got the moral victory.
The weirdest part of the whole night was on the way back to the club. We got to the entrance to the bay, and suddenly got hit with the biggest set of wake waves I have ever seen. I mean like 5' swells, out of nowhere. In Wayzata Bay. They hit us on the quarter, so we weren't in the best position to ride through them. We got a little beat up on those, were very confused, but it settled down and we kept going (though we lost all power because the sails got swung around so bad. it was creepy!) We went a little ways further, and then got hit again, apparently by the other side of the wake (or perhaps a reflection off the shore). Those hit us from the other direction, and actually turned the boat 90 degrees, partially because Barnes was surprised by them. We came down so hard once that a wave of water came over the transom, and soaked my shoes and the main sheet. On the cruise back in! It was freaky. None of us could figure out where the damn things had come from, as there didn't seem to be any inordinately large boats out. My theory is that several biggish boats were going in the same line, and somehow amplified each others' waves.