Race 14 was sailed under clear skies with a consistent south breeze blowing at 5 -7 knots. 11 boats made it out to the W6 course, with Hogback as the windward mark and a tetrahedron for the start and leeward mark. The line was set with a pin-end favor. With most boats opting for a mid-line to pin start, High Jinx pushed Vaporize dangerously close to being called over early. Uncle Ludwig ran out of line and needed to gybe around and weave through the rest of fleet, crossing T on port. Wild Thing tacked to port early and pulled a few more boats to the west side of the course.
Vaporize, Witch Way and Spirit were among the contenders looking to the east side for advantage. At the first mark Dave led the way. Wild Thing and Brad’s J/80 slipped ahead of Witch Way, which was clearly leading the J/24 pack. A late set and hourglass on Brad’s boat would shuffle the pack by the next rounding. The sport boats split again on the downwind, with Vaporize heading west, Wild Thing down the middle and Brad out east. The J/24 fleet had a great run straight down the middle with a few gybes to keep lined up on the tetrahedron.
Vaporize and Wild Thing led around the mark again but Witch Way, Spirit and Uncle Ludwig got ahead of Brad. Vaporize held off Wild Thing until the second downwind rounding where Spencer, sticking to the east side, crossed Dave just a few yards from the tetrahedron and headed back towards Hogback in slightly increasing wind velocity.
With the sun setting behind the western ridge the RC moved up to Hogback for the finish after five legs. Vaporize got ahead of Wild Thing on the last leg for line honors and Witch Way won on time after crossing the line third. Meanwhile, Spirit covered Uncle Ludwig on the eastern horizon where they fell into the wind shadow of Long Island. This allowed woot! and Windog to cross the line ahead of them. Cut Loose was able to nip out Uncle Ludwig at the finish, widening the point spread between Spirit and Uncle Ludwig.
Congratulations to Alfie and crew on Witch Way for another win, Spencer on Wild Thing took second by four seconds over Dave on Vaporize, and well-done to Windog for making up a lot of ground in the final leg. The full results are below with a synopsis of the series standings.
Next week will be a full moon and a raft-up will take place directly after the last boat finishes, weather permitting.
Also, the end of the year celebration at Carl R’s is being planned and this year some extra “prizes” by Gill will be drawn, using a random number generator based on boat and crew position. Please attend the party to find out who the lucky ones are!