2013 Long Beach Wet Wednesday
Guys,Our most competitive race of the year. Everyone had a shot. The eighth race of the season turned out to be quite a collection of different facts and circumstances. Prior to the race I was down at Seal Beach having lunch with some friends (yes I have friends) and when I exited the restaurant I took a look at the water and saw 19 knots of wind blowing right out of the west. Whitecaps were everywhere. I thought this was going to be some kind of night. The crew that could survive the best would win. Well, by race time the wind had diminished quite a bit. We were registering 10 knots of breeze blowing from a direction of 210 degrees at the start.
We had five boats make it to the line: Tiburon (last week's winner), Iguana, One Time, RhymeNReason and Go Big Daddy. PRO Jerry Leth called for course #42; a nice 5.2 mile long windward/leeward event that took us to mark 31 (first on the wall) down to mark 38, back to 31 and then home. It was a great call for the evening and necessitated two hoists and douses in order to complete it.
The line was set perfectly square to the weather mark so all the starters got the opportunity to do a lot of maneuvering during the pre-start chaos. When the gun went off One Time was exactly where she wanted to be and had boat speed to boot. So much for winning the start insofar as Tiburon picked up a lot of speed after the gun and soon was out in front of everyone, albeit not by much. Looking down the line from the committee boat it was One Time, Tiburon, Iguana and RhymeNReason. Everyone headed to the wall with Tiburon and One Time leading the pack. RhymeNReason was hugging the left side of the course and I felt they were sailing themselves right out of the race. Should have known better since I've seen them do exactly the same thing many times only to turn around in the jetty and see them right on my arse. Iguana was the first to tack over, followed by Go Big Daddy. One Time tacked shortly thereafter and when she came to a crossing situation with the other boats found themselves in fourth place. Not good. While fetching the weather mark it appeared that Iguana rolled Tiburon and found themselves in the lead. Iguana was showing good boat speed that we haven't necessarily seen in some of the prior races. It's a wonderful thing what a full bevy of crew can do. After a short distance, Tiburon regained the lead and rounded the weather mark in first place. She executed a clean hoist and set sail for the leeward mark. Iguana was next, followed by RNR, One Time and GBD. All the boats were separated by only a few lengths so it was still anybody's race.
Around the mark One Time did a gybe set and was able to use the maneuver to pick off one boat. Now the order stood at Tiburon, Iguana, One Time, RhymeNReason and Go Big Daddy. That order stayed the same around the leeward mark and even held back up to the weather mark although the fleet was compressing. On the second downwind leg lots of things happened. Tiburon had a comfortable lead, were sailing flawlessly, and it was looking like they were going to get their second bottle of rum in a row. However, it was not to be. About midway back to the jetty they had a spinnaker malfunction (hour glassed it) and lost boat speed and their lead. Iguana went right past them to leeward while One Time did the same thing to windward. Now it was a three horse race with good old RNR lurking in the shadows ready to devour whomever they could. Heading downwind One Time engaged everyone in a gybing duel. First they went after Tiburon, then Iguana, then Tiburon, Iguana, etc. You get the picture. When the dust settled it was One Time with a slight lead, then Iguana, then Tiburon, RNR and GBD. One Time was starting to enjoy themselves but their was still a huge fly in the soup. Everyone in our fleet plus the Cat 37s, PHRF A's and a bunch of Cal 20 gnats were approaching the jetty entrance at the same time. It was looking to be "train city" down the jetty and on to the finish.
One Time got to the jetty right behind two 37s and in front of the other nine. So far so good. However, that was not the case for Iguana and Tiburon. It was "sandwich city" for them. There was nowhere they could go. They had 37s in front, side and rear. Bad situation. It got even worse for Tiburon as some unknown 37 smacked them in the stern, no damage, and then yelled at them, as if it was their fault for not getting out of the way, I guess. Imagine that! I suppose we should all just realize that the real Wet Wednesday "stars" are the Catalina 37s and the rest of us are just supporting cast members. Are you picking up on my sarcasm?
Back to the race: Somewhere around ABYC, Iguana pulled a hot maneuver, went high, got clear air and took off for the finish line. Ditto for RhymeNReason who was coming on strong from the low side. One Time also stayed low, kept their air clear and was able to hold off everyone to the finish. It was developing into such an exciting finish that after crossing the line One Time sailed clear, did a 180, and held steady while observing the rest of the fleet do battle. Iguana earned a hard fought second place, RNR was third, Tiburon took fourth and GBD was close behind in fifth place.
This, by far, was the fleet's best race of the year. Congratulations to everyone. Next week we get to do it all over again. I'm looking forward to it.
Art