White Lake Yacht Club is the home of the 2012 MC National Championship Regatta. 94 boats have registered. I got in yesterday and lazily set up the boat. I missed the practice race. White Lake does not have enough boat storage room, so most of the boats are on moorings in the water. The mooring are just a cinder block tied to a rope. I am not a fan of this set up. It is very hard to set the mooring up with so many boats and have enough scope on the anchor so that you don't drag and you don't run in to anyone. It took two tries, and I think I now have it close to good.
All day the wind was from the South/Southwest. This lake runs WSW to ENE, so only a good West or an East will give long legs. We had two 3.5 lappers and one 2.5 lapper. The wind varied from 6-15 today. The first race was mostly in the mid teens and the second was a little lighter. Race three was closer to 8-10. The wind also oscillated 30 degrees all day.
It was a tough day for sailing. I had a decent start for race 1, meaning I had ok speed and I didn't get buried, but I did not blast out. I found myself mid fleet at the first windward pile up. I did not quite figure out the phases until the third windward leg. I was able to get into the high twenties, but faded at the end to get 34th.
Race 2 was not as kind. I had a bad second group start and battled from there. I had a pension for grabbing weeds in this race and it really took me out of the game mentally. I was in the high 40s most of the race. On the last tack to get to the committee, the main sheet unraveled from the traveler block and I watched it race through the purchases. I was able to get it hooked in on a 2:1 purchase instead of the standard 4:1. I dropped down to 57th because of that. After race 2 we went in for a Lunch break.
Coming back out for race 3 I really thought about what I did and how I can improve.
I had another horrendous start, this time I was at the line but did not get going quickly enough and got rolled. I went left and it looked golden, but about 2/3rds of the way up the wind changed to the right, so every one that went right made out on that first beet. I was in the lower part of the fleet and had an altercation on the course with Jack Kern who I tacked in front of and he went below my stern and headed up and hit me based on him thinking I was wrong to tack were I did. I did my penalty turns because two guys went into the mark because I could not give them room and not on Jacks argument. From there I worked hard to get back towards mid fleet as I only had about 10 boats behind me. It was another long 3.5 times around and I was able to get back up to around 40th but missed a few shifts at the end and dropped to 55th.
It was a tough day.
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