Daily Reports
Day 3–
Thursday, September 20, 2006
Marblehead, MA – (Sept 21) – After a long day of
sailing, that started near 1000 hrs. and ended after 1700 hrs., Scott
Young and crew from Austin Yacht Club (TX) clings to a small lead.
Young is just three points ahead of David Bolyard, Jr. of Pontchtrain.
Charlie Quigley of host Boston Yacht Club, slipped to third with one bad
race, seven points behind the leader. With 9 races down and 2 to go
tomorrow the field is still very tight. Vineyard Haven Yacht Club is 4
points out of the top three places.
The long day started with heavy winds in the low
20s. The first race ended in 3 breakdowns. The RC brought everyone in
for lunch and flew the AP while they repaired the boats and waited for
the weather to settle. The wind moderated to the low teens and was 5 to
6 knots by the end of the day, when the final race needed to be
shortened by a leg in order to insure it finished with enough wind.
At the first rounding of Race 6 (first race of
today), two leading groups came in to the windward mark. A boat in the
second group rolled to starboard and broached. He recovered, broached,
recovered and broached again. The skipper fell off and tried to bring
the spinnaker down on a reach. The broach caused the spinnaker halyard
to jam in the sheath. At this point he was back on port and he barely
cleared the windward committee boat before he could wrap the spinnaker
around the shroud, shielding it behind the jib, so he could sail.
The sailors experienced every condition today and
the favored side of the course switched frequently as evidenced by the
spread of results. One team finished with a 1, 3, 5, 7, while another
contender finished with a 2, 5, 7, 5. “The wind was far more difficult
to read,” said one skipper, “The leaders would go for the same shift and
it would fill in from places you didn’t expect”.
One boat (who asked to stay anonymous) even had a
Man Overboard one minute before the last start. His crew pulled him in
and they didn’t miss a beat, notching their best start of the day.
Again the caliber of racing was evident in the tight
packs of boats. It was rare that one would break away or the pack
spread out. The Championships wrap up tomorrow (Friday) with two more
races off Marblehead.
See the exciting photos of the racing at
USSAILING.ORG and more at BostonYachtClub.net.
