CPYC Vanguard 15 Racing Report
Sunday, July 31, 2005
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Here goes a rather brief summary for you. I don't know everyones names or the numbers competing for which I apologise.
Sunday afternoon turned up spectacular sailing conditions, and a fleet
of 11 boats. Perfectly blue sunny skies, a building 10 knot
easterly breeze - (I think my directions are not quite there yet) -
with a flooding tide. I lost count of the races but we had a great mix
of short windward leward and triangle courses, with a little chop which
mean't getting the waves right paid huge dividends downwind by sailing
down the wave driving off to get some forward and leeward gain. Crew
co-ordination being important to getting this right.
We came out top ahead of Jamie and his crew, after what felt like a
very close battle, even if the points difference did not reflect this.
Luckily a discard allowed us to drop the race in which our jib tack
came loose giving me a fright that our mast was about to fall down but
somehow the forestay held up.
Lauren Anderson, my crew for the day, was excellent and sat out hard to
keep the boat dead flat and was very quick about the boat. At a total
of 310lbs I felt we were just the right weight to power along upwind
and not too heavy to lose out downwind. Being used to sailing with my
daughter, I would have been de-powering the boat a lot in the breeze we
had but with Lauren I was able to keep the rig fully powered, important
I think in the chop, as we had plenty of power to work the boat along.
I notice that we had very good pointing relative to the rest of the
fleet and to be honest I am not entirely sure why!
Certainly keeping the boat flat and avoiding the worst of the chop by
either bearing away or feathering, which ever seemed best, was fast and
I notice that a lot of the fleet in my view sail the boats upwind with
too much leeward heel.
Well done to the race team for running an excellent series.
Charles Stanley
