The seventh of July was the annual Lusitania Cup race. This is another handicap race and is open to any boat at the club. This time they separate the boats between cruisers and day sailors for the awards but we have the same start. I was going to sail this in the Lightning with my brother Dave and his wife Lorraine, but Lorraine won BoSox tickets in Boston for Saturday and they bailed on me. So I sailed the MC. The MC is rated as one of the faster boats with only 4 other boats rated faster of the 12 that raced. The course was close to the same as the Solstice race, but the opposite direction and not quite as long. The second mark was halfway between Marlena point and the bluff instead of far into the east branch.
I did not have a good start as I was blanketed by a 26ft cruiser. Instead of bailing out to the west shore, I dove down out into the lake to clear my air. I was able to recover somewhat and rounded the first mark in 5th along with an Ideal 18 and the cruiser that blanketed me at the start. Once going downwind, the Ideal put up the spinnaker and the cruiser did not. It was a best to reach to Marlena and then head to the second mark. It was a nice tight reach to Marlena point and me and the Ideal just pulled away from the pack. Once at Marlena we gybed for a more broader run to the mark I was able to pass the Ideal but could not get separation. Around halfway to the third mark the wind started to pick up. This really helped me once I started going upwind after the mark. It was there that I created the separation that I needed from the Ideal. I ended beating the Ideal by over 3 minutes to the finish and was the third boat over. In corrected time, I was also third. The first boat over dropped to 4th, the Ideal made up all her time and placed 1st and the second place boat lost time to me, but not enough for me to catch up. It was a fun day on the water and beer drinking while racing. It is tough to drink beer and sail on an MC as I ended up spilling twice.
Racing on Sunday the 8th was one of those days I wish I could forget. I only had 1 crew for the Lightning and had a picnic to go to in the afternoon so I was unsure of how much MC racing I going to do.
I was unable to find a third crew for Lightning racing, so Mike and I just tried our hand at double handing the Lightning. It was tough. Upwind was not an issue, but downwind, getting the spinnaker up and gybing were going to be tough. I had Mike set the pole, then go to the low side while having the halyard in his hand, he had to clear everything from hooks and cleats and then put the spinnaker on the deck and then start pulling up the halyard. I had to pull the guy over, it was a balancing act as no one could keep the pole from going back, which can hurt pulling the guy back.
We had to wait for the wind to settle in from the north. The RC put the course right in the spot where there was a hole in the wind. If he had gone about 1/4 mile in any direction, preferably NW, then we could have gotten two races in. Instead we only had 1 and the Lightnings had to wait for the E-Scows to start properly as they had two general recalls in a row. Once we started, we were good upwind as usual, but once rounding we lost boats. I am just struggling downwind, even if this time I had the excuse of only having 1 other on the boat. I felt like we did a decent job of sailing considering. We had the full fleet out and I ended up 4th out of 5.
Over lunch, the wind started to pick up and settle out of the north. I told Chris I thought this was good, he just looked at me and said all this wind is getting tiring. I was excited to go out and went out early. It was a 2 laps, out of the north, around 12-15kn and we had 6 boats at the start. I started mid line right between Chris and Steve Bender. I felt like I had good speed, but the Chris pulled in front. I thought, ok, he is real fast in this wind. Then Steve started to pull away from me, I thought, ok, he outweighs me by 90 pounds, he can sail with more power. Chris just motored away. Steve and I stayed on Starboard until just below the layline. I saw that Brent was between Chris and Steve, fairly close to Chris. It stayed like this the rest of the race with me doing my utmost to catch Steve to no avail. Eventually he pulled even farther away. On the last beat, the wind started to wain some. I felt comfortably ahead of the 5th placed boat, but near the finish Spencer just came in a great puff and I think I was just plain slow. I looked at my rudder and I did have some weeds, but not enough to slow me down as slow as I was. He beat me by more than a boat length. I was pissed, in fact I am not sure if I have been that angry with my sailing since a regatta in 2005 in Diamond Lake Michigan. when I finished 22, 21, 25 out of 26 boats in the first three races.
As the wind had lightened up, I decided I'd rather be at the picnic then sail in light air, so I sailed in. The fleet had two more one lap races in what turned out to be fairly good wind. It took until I got to the exit in Big Flats before I had calmed down. I had all sorts of crazy thoughts going through my head. Stuff like, maybe I've lost my touch, or maybe I'm just not that good, or maybe the Lightning is taking to much out of me mentally to race well in the MC. All sorts of defeatist thinking. It suddenly dawned on me that I had been keeping the main in extra tight for too long and cleating the main sheet. I used to never cleat the main, even in super heavy air. All I would do was hold onto it in the other had for a quick little break. Time for me to start doing some weight training.
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