Full Report - Day 2
Saturday, August 4
On this the first official race day of the Independence Cup/NACC winds were light with barely 6mph. softening to 4mph. The early easterly shifted through fifty degrees before shifting back, again in slow motion. The overcast shielded all from the sun’s fury and provided cool temperatures throughout the day.
Five races were sailed in the Sonar and 2.4 Metre fleets and four in the Freedoms. At the end of the day in the 2.4mR fleet Mike LeBlanc of Southern Yacht Club held first with 8 points followed by John Ruf of Pewaukee Yacht and Charles Rosenfield of Woodstock, CT, each with 11 points.
In the Sonar class, Albert Foster from Wayzata Yacht Club is even with Paul Callahan of New York Yacht Club with 12 points apiece. Third place, with 15 points, is held by Ken Kelly of RVYC.
The Freedom 20 division is led by Mike Strahle of Redding, CA. There is a tie for second between the champion of the last four years, Karen Mitchell and local Mike Jaffe of the Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program.
After breaking for lunch and to rotate boats, the Freedoms returned to the race course with renewed energy and 6 to 7 knots of breeze. In the first race of the afternoon with a pin end favored Mike Jaffe was sitting pretty at the pin as the gun went off. However, Mike was over by a nose and had to return. As he watched the fleet head out on starboard, he restarted on port and kept going right.
It wasn’t long before Karen Mitchell noticed that Mike was making out like a bandit on the right side of the course. She flopped over and calculated that it was worth going right even if she had to duck some sterns to get there. And it paid off as she regained some ground.
Jaffe held his lead throughout the race, despite the fact that going right the second time around wasn’t nearly as advantageous. Mitchell ended up with a third with William Donohue ahead of her in second.
When asked if he would have gone right if he hadn’t had to restart, Jaffe commented, “Well, I’ve thought about that and I can’t say that I would but, the same thing happened in the next race and again I made out by restarting and splitting out. However, I don’t think I’ll do that as a matter of habit.”