A series 2

Bizarre, strange, weird day of racing! Super light and shifty, and I think we only led the race for a combined 400', but at least they were the right 400' and we won the days only race.

We started one race, which turned into a reach to the mark and was thankfully abandoned. The second start was squared up a bit, and we got a good position but slow start, and had to bail out to the right. At this point it was the "windiest" at around 6kts, and we felt good out right until one of the days many shifts came through, and put us behind 196 and 45 at the top mark, with 63 just behind. We gybed out from 63 and happened in some lucky patches of puff and angle and passed 45, and in doing a few more gybes over the top of 196, I think we actually passed them for a bit, but then overdid it and overstood stbd layline a bit, and rounded behind 196, and ahead of 45 (who gave us room although they didn't have to) Then things got weirder, as despite rounding 4 lengths behind (but with a tighter rounding) we got wound up hard inside 196, and actually went from straight astern to 2 lengths ahead. 130, who came from nowhere to get inside of us after the rounding, then charge on by on the inside, while 196 had lots of pace outside, and then we were in third. (!??) 196 tacked and crossed us to go inside, while we continued out right with 130. This proved good, as when we tacked back we crossed both 196 and 249, who had apparently come from way deep to be close to the leaders. Once we approached stbd layline we tacked, and got tacked on by 130. Then things got weirder, as the breeze dropped to nil on the water, with a tiny bit up top. In essentially zero kts, we were all stacked up on the stbd layline (130, 88, 196,149) to what was now a shortened windward finish. We made fwd progress of about 4'/min for a while, until there was a tiny bit of breeze to work with. We ended up passing 130 incredible slowly, and ghosted over the finish line within about 30 seconds of what we figured the time limit to be. Quite intense racing, despite the snails pace, especially watching the RC boat guys watch the line, while one of them frantically looked at the GPS for timing. Today gave me a huge headache, but points is points! The finish order was us, 196, 130, 45, 249, 67, 63

We had me, Niki, Shawn O and Andy H on board today, which worked pretty well. I wish we'd had more time to practice in the AM as we had Andy in a new spot today, and Shawn usually sails big boats. Every one did great though, and I picked up some important skills for the super light air.

Tune: we were underpowered all day, which was no surprise, but I'm wishing I'd tuned for a flatter main, either with shims or headstay, as we had lots of trouble getting the main to look decent and fly the tells.

Trick of the day: when we were drifting at the finish, we were able to pass and extend by doing the following:

being really patient with everything! it's a frustrating stupid condition, but you have to stay cool

not steering! we figured out how aggressive the trimmers had to be, and how minimal I had to be. We were trying to beat/reach in 0.01 kts, with lots of chop, so the boat wants to turn in the wrong direction most of the time. The solution is to keep the tiller more or less centered, and do huge eases/trims on both sails to change heading. We passed 130, probably, going twice as fast (still slow) by doing this, and didn't get hurt the way some boats did (there were boats doing 360's, and tacking, all while ttrying to go straight)

downwind: we experimented a lot with how hot of an angle to exit gybes on, and really found a sweet spot. Shawn's also really good at communication in terms of sheet load/angle so we were able to keep the boat going faster and lower than everyone else. I think I've settled on how I like to get feedback from the spin trimmer: using top/middle/bottom to express where the boats heading relative to the sheet load works well for me.

weight low: in every way. We had Niki underdeck and forward (under the spin for fly relief) and everyone else was in full hike... to leeward.

The racing wasn't by any means great, but it was still a really intense day on the water, and fun. I think 5 different boats led the race about 8 or 9 times!

This week we're hoping to finally beercan, and are setting up some competition in an Etchells skipper who's borrowing a shields to take friends out with. neat!