We launched from Buzzard Beach. The course was agreed to be two laps, finishing to windward, all marks to starboard. We did not discuss how to manage penalties, a fact which was to come to light later in the day. But first we go downwind:
Oy. He's killing me. My foresail and jib are blanketed by the aft sail, I'm in essence sailing on 65 ft^2.
We round the mark and head off to windward. The following is a very tragic video:
Tragic, as you can see, because the wind had filled in to a solid 7 to 10 mph and Laurent was nicely flying a hull for a long stretch. I tried to steady the camera, I think, and only made the shot much worse. Oh well.
We had headed downwind on starboard, about ten degrees off a dead run. We rounded the leeward mark and hardened up to a beat, then shunted when we hit the layline and could point to the windward mark. The downwind leg was about 3/4 of a mile, I think, which was nice, not too long and lots of manuvering without taking all day for a race. The course was so short and the boats are so slow to come about, though, that there was not much tactical stuff going on, just sail to where you think you should turn and turn.
I thought Laurent overstood the mark on the first windward leg, so I shunted sooner than he did. I also still shunt a bit quicker than he does. The result was that we were very close at the first windward mark. I rounded first, but the &%$#%^ roller furler messed up again and I had to run forward and fix it before I could shunt to starboard and head downwind again. So he got away from me, not that I could keep up downwind anyway.
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