Saturday, September 20

The Judges started their day off with a redress hearing.  Yesterday Scott Young had a breakdown just after the start.  The jib halyard failed and the jib came down on the deck.  With quick thinking, he and his crew used the spinnaker halyard to raise the jib and got back into the race.  The Judges recorded the breakdown time, and the time that was required to change the spinnaker halyard from the jib to the spinnaker at each rounding.  In spite of this handicap, Scott and his crew were able pull themselves from last to eighth.  Based upon his average points, the Judges awarded him second place for that race.

While that was going on in the protest room, The Event Chair and the PRO were having a private conversation with the wind gods down on the docks.  The winds were blowing heavily at three knots, there was a heavy overcast, and fog was sitting on top of the hills surrounding the bay.  Nevertheless, the crews headed to their assigned J/24s and the Race Committee Members gathered on the appropriate boat. 

With the Race Committee on station for race 10, they were reading a steady eight knots at 218 degrees.  As the countdown was heading to that magical gun, the boats were all lined up and no one was going to be over early.  Most of the boats favored the left side of the course.  At the first mark, all the competitors completed the rounding in one minute and thirty-one seconds.  As the fleet headed towards that left corner, four boats gybed back towards the middle.  These four boats increased their lead.  After rounding the gates and heading back upwind, some boats went to the left side of the course and capitalized on an area of greater pressure.  This move cemented the finishing positions.

For race two, the wind freshened to 18 to 20 knots.  The boats split to the left and right after the gun.  As the group settled in, there were tacks searching for that magical wind shift.  Again, a few boats went towards that left corner and grabbed that little extra that brought them to the windward mark first.  Just after rounding the windward mark, Alan Bock’s spinnaker halyard came uncleated and set the brakes.  The top five boats at the windward mark successfully read the wind as they raced downwind towards the gates.  The top four positions were held by the competitors for the remaining legs of the race.  At the finish one boat length separated the first and second boat