Rarely on our schedule do we end up sailing more than two races a day. Yet, the organizers of Holland’s Grade One event have scheduled us for exactly that for the entire event. Three races per day starting at 1300 hours each day. Yesterday, day one of five we started at two o’clock with about sixty boats split between two qualifying fleets. The sun doesn’t realistically set until well after 9 o’clock thanks to our northern latitude, so starting races at 430 seems like a mid-afternoon affair, and hitting the beach at 615 is no sweat.
We got all three, efficiently started and smartly run races off, each taking almost exactly the target time of 60 minutes to finish. Luckily for the race committee we had a left-trending, but relatively steady 8-12+ knot northeasterly pushing us around the course.
I started off the day with a bang winning the first race and taking a fifth in the second race, taking pin-end starts into impending left shifts and crossing back to the middle to good position within the fleet. The third race was likely my best start of the day, and yet no such lefty made itself available until we were nearly on layline. I hedged my bets and ducked through 8 or 10 boats back to the middle under the port tack layline, but the right-hander that would ultimately dominate the rest of the race was still in its weak filling stages. I managed to catch a few boats on the runs and reaches, but not to get out of the 20s where I initially rounded the first mark. I’m not unhappy with the day though considering the starts and first beats were generally better than the last few events that I’d sailed.
Today we’re scheduled for three more starting at 1300. With an easterly already filled in, I’d imagine we have all three races finished right on schedule, and if not I’m sure we’ll wait until 8pm or dusk (whichever comes first) to sail any remaining races.
Best bet for regatta scores is to link through www.sailing.org
