7 of us did the Iceberg Regatta on Saturday. Really six line pullers + my dad, who is still recovering from some pretty serious health issues. All of us had a great time, in spite of the lousy weather forecast for rain and light air. Turns out it was pretty dry, and we had enough breeze to get us around the course. Dad was quite impressed with how we handled the boat, and didn't even grumble about having us stuff acres of dacron on his head repeatedly as we swapped spinnakers.
We started pin end which was heavily favored if you wanted a starboard approach. We did, and managed to fend of the competition (Muffin, Bergen Viking, Kowloon, Idefix) for clear air near the pin. We got the obligatory "Nice start, Asshole" cheer from the Muffin, and others who were late but flopped over onto port quickly. The real winner was Bravo Zulu, driven by Ben Braden. They chose the port tack and did well with it, carrying the tack all the way to the mark. We tacked once close to the breakwater and then were hot on their heels, extending on the slower boats and staying higher and faster than the J-35.
Had a decent mark rounding, and planned to set the A3 when we rounded but were slow doing it. When we finally did, we had the tack line led wrong, requiring a lot of effort by the crew to get it re-led. This distracted us somewhat from being able to hold the hot sail angle we were on with the reacher, and ended up dumping the kite a couple times because we weren't as focused as we needed to be. Note to self: got to communicate in advance what we need to do to keep the kite up on a puffy reach--trimmer, driver, and main need to be really quick to stay ahead of the boat. Mostly driver needs to talk more, but main has to dump early and everybody has to work together with a lot of focus.
Leeward mark rounding was a thing of beauty as we fought off the J-35 above us, sailed higher and faster than Tuesday, and rounded the mark in clear air. The run was deeper than the A-sail wanted to go, so I called for the Russian. Got the Audi (our smallest kite) instead, though it set nicely and the assy douse was perfect . Both bags are blue, North bags, and now say Russian and Audi on them in large bold letters. The J-35 and Bravo Zulu ran away from us at this point, although they later said nice things about the peel.
Our final beat back to the finish was OK, we gained back most of what we lost on the J-35, but BZ just kept running. Worse, when we finished we noticed that Kiwi Express was only about 8 minutes behind us. Turns out they corrected over us by 11 seconds to take 2nd, leaving us 3rd across the line and 3rd in our fleet. (4th overall for the regatta.) We happily accepted a small pint glass at the sloop that evening with 3rd place on it and really didn't mind the ribbing we got from the other boats for our somewhat visible slip ups. Live and learn. Don't make the same mistakes twice. But is good to be on the podium, and in the hunt.
All in all, it was a lot of fun. We sailed pretty well, but a couple of little mistakes cost us the 2nd place. The folks on Bravo Zulu are great competition for us, and we need to set our sights on faster boats if we want to continue to improve. Thanks to everyone who came out!
Results are here: http://www.styc.org/race_info/Iceberg%20Race/2011/race1.htm
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