  |
|||
|
|
|||
|
NEWS
|
|||
| FROM THE COCKPIT: THE FINAL FROM NATIONALS | |||
Day three was very similar to Friday and had a shifty Northwest breeze. No lead was really safe.At times, some areas of the race course would lose the breeze entirely and a new breeze would fill in from the other side. In the last race of the day (race 9) our team onboard USA 548 had a clean start on the hip of USA 655 Lightwave. Moving upwind on the first beat the middle of the course seemed to work well as there were enough wind shifts that neither side of the course really paid off. In addition before the race starts the middle of the course still has solid breeze. The second and last beat forces you to pick a side because of all the chopped up air caused by the fleet in the middle. After working up the middle of the course we rounded the mark in the mid-teens. Rosebud rounded in first with a pretty nice lead on the next group behind. Downwind we really focused protecting our position, making an extra gybe to stay between the fleet and the leeward gates. Port gybe was favored and we worked to get to the left gate which we felt was closer. After a clear rounding we headed back up wind for about 5 minutes on port and then made a tack to Starboard. It had been like a roll of the dice picking which side would work out in every leg today and I was nervous that we were going to end up on the outside of a lift (right hand shift). Fortunately for us the left hand side maintained pressure for longer than the right. Rosebud and some of the other early leaders had dug in to the right hand side and now were struggling to work back to the breeze. At the second windward mark the wind was very light, we inched around the mark in 7th. Rosebud the eventually winner of the event and race 9 showed why on the last downwind run to the finish. There gybes were very smooth and it seemed that with each turn they would gain on the boats that had passed them on the upwind. There rolls out of the gybe were not too aggressive for the light breeze but just enough to generate acceleration. The main and chute stayed in good trim, never strapped out of the gybe. They worked there way back into the lead to win the regatta by 1 point. This was a very impressive display of composure and boat handling when the regatta was on the line. We traded gybes with Full Throttle and Obsession at the bottom third of the race course. Full throttle crossed us on port first, then we crossed them on port, then on the last cross they got the better of us finishing 7th. We gybed to port right ahead of Obsession and were able to finish 8th. The regatta was very tough mentally on Friday and Saturday. Every boat with the exception of the top three finishers in the regatta had a 20+ finish somewhere in there score line. It was definitely unique experience, our team made progress each day posting too very quality finishes on the last day with a 10th and 8th respectively achieving three top ten finishes in the last six races. |
International Melges 24 Class Association
©2008. U.S. Melges 24 Class Association. All Rights Reserved.
