The first day of the regatta was scheduled to have three races around the cans with a decent turn out of 13 Moores. It was great to see some less frequent Moore's out giving good competition such as Rosa Mystica 136, Moxy 110, Moore Havoc 135 and Oxymoron with their newly acquired boat.
the harsh realities of missing the pumpkin
the most fun award on Moxy
Breeze was light to moderate out of a very southerly direction giving us the feeling that there were changes a coming.
Race 1 got underway without a hitch and Firefly led around the first mark, followed closely by Gruntled and Mooretician. Next it was just a quick race to the finish line…or wait, is it to leeward mark and then finish? In typical Firefly fashion we were headed to the wrong mark (finish) while leading because someone taped the wrong sailing areas courses to the cabin top. While the trailing boats were bringing more breeze down and the start/finish line being restricted, I felt my blood pressure rising just a bit as I quickly realized that I was the one that taped the course sheet down, so, My bad boys! We managed to stay just ahead of the fleet as a huge righty came in. We rounded the leeward mark and did not tack as quick as we should have. This was clear to me as I saw Gruntled putting a clinic on to how its done and taking the lead to the finish. Lesson learned 68, lesson learned.
Races two and three were certainly less eventful comparatively. The building breeze and RC moving the course gave all the crews time too contemplate a head sail change. I appropriately suggested the 2, and then the 3, then the 2, then maybe the 3… Understandable the crew informed me that “we’ll just wait then” to which I responded with “Fair”. Ultimately we ended up in the J2 and turned out to be the right call for us. Unfortunately for 68 and 6 the RC had them OCS, stalling their charge to stay in the top of the standings. The Flying Tiger took the win in race two sailing a super solid regatta!
Race three the breeze backed off a few kts. and we saw the fleet playing the vicious headsail change game again. We opted to stay in the J2. Overall plan for Firefly was to get off the start line with pace, but ended up getting flushed out the back and forced to tack and head the wrong way. Luckily my crack crew consisting of Hartwell Jordon, Chris Weis and Ben Mercer pulled us out of the hole and battled back to a second for the race with Gruntled taking the win again.
Day one turned out to be a great all-around day with everyone in the fleet giving fierce competition.
Pursuit Race day 2
Luckily making it out of the rowdy RYC party and awards we were in good shape to take on the day the following morning, We had one crew member change as Ben had prior engagements so Ryan Treais joined the gang. We honestly did not know which way we were going to go as there were compelling reasons to go either way. The issue with going counter as early as the start was, is there was no breeze that we could see on the Belvedere cove side of the river pushing through raccoon straights. The issue with going clockwise in our view was though the pressure was quite a bit better going clockwise, going through the raccoon straights against the ebb leaving the bay was going to be quite costly. As luck would have it the breeze filled by Belvedere cove and our decision was made.
Firefly popped out the straights first with Mooretician and Ruby in close pursuit. Nearing the Alcatraz buoy a friendly J24 decided they did not want to let us through and camped on us. We were pretty sure we could hear Ruby and Mooretician laughing as they closed gauge.
the reach
The move around Alcatraz seemed to be to hug the southern side of the rock as close as you’d dare to ride the counter current and gybe immediately when exiting. The issue with that was there was a big wind hole on the eastern side so it seemed to be a case of first in first out IF the ebb didn’t push you back into the rock. We had an interesting conversation about when exactly to gybe between Hart and i that went something like,
H “Joel can we gybe and make it”
J “not sure Hart”
H “Joel Can we gybe now”
J “Not sure how this is going to…” Hart yells “gybing!!” so I rolled the boat through the maneuver. LOL
All went well and we were all off to the finish sailing the rhumbline with Ruby two or so boat lengths from our stern.
the other 100 or so boats in pursuit
Mooretician opted to taking a slightly more easterly route. Not exactly sure wether to fend off Ruby who was trying to roll us or cover Mooretician east we thought it best to just sail that little boat as fast as we could and get to that finish line. Success!
mod 70 comes in for the final gybe to the finish
A nice ending to a great weekend sailing with good friends and a Moore fleet that seems more and more like family.