Wet Wednesday June 1,2011

Pictures from the second leg of the race.

One Time on the left, Discovery and Tiberon.


Tiburon and Discovery battle down the second leg of an all starboard roundings course.



By Fleet Captain Art Melendres.

Wednesday's race was quite an event.
The race committee sent us on a "half the five islands course"  which consisted of beating to the first mark on the wall and then rounding it and two oil islands all to starboard  before engaging on a long reach back to the jetty and  home.
As is usually the case I didn't see the start  insofar as I was otherwise occupied.  What I did see, on the first beat,  was a near fatal collision between Discovery and Tiburon that would undoubtedly have taken out both boats for the summer. 
Thank goodness both skippers reacted in a timely manner to avoid the contact.  At any rate, everyone battled back and forth for the privilege of rounding the weather mark first,  The battle was won by Nemesis followed closely by One Time,  Tiburon
and Discovery.  One Time made a costly mistake by trying to fly a spinnaker however the angle was too tight and it didn't work out for them.  Fact is, everyone passed them and they soon found themselves in fourth place. 
Nemesis and Tiburon jockeyed back and forth for the lead to the leeward oil island.   It was a virtual dead heat around the island between Nemesis, Tiburon and Discovery.  That's when things got interesting. 
Nemesis went low to avoid the lee, Tiburon went middle and Discovery went high.   Everyone got hit by the lee and struggled to get through.  One Time looked at everyones problems and took the path of least resistance.  
All of a sudden it was a boat race again.  Nemesis and Tiburon elected to not fly the chutes.  Discovery put it up but then came close to dousing it.  One Time figured the only way to get back in the race was to fly it and hang on.  
Discovery won the leg to the jetty and then hung on to take the race. One Time was second, followed closely by Tiburon and Nemesis, Rhyme N Reason and Santa Maria.  We had wind all the way and the course was a lot of fun.  In fact the courses this year have been great.  Many thanks to Cindy Bambam (and our own Brad Willingham) for these new courses.