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National Offshore One Design |
March 19th, 20th, 21st, 2004
Day 1. Friday March 19th
CIA was one of five Beneteau 40.7’s entered in the first NOOD regatta to include our class as a One Design. We got an early start for our rigging and, had to leave Margot behind this time, as she wasn’t feeling well.
Jim Forbes flew in from Oregon and Russ came in from Colorado for the first races, which included some new faces as well as old. Lisa Marie returned and worked the foredeck, with Matt’s absence sailing with William on his Soling. Newcomer Bob Carlson worked the mast and Peg, another new crewmember, was able to step into pit. Andrew, who normally sails on Silhouette, came on and helped the trimmers learn more about the finer points of our boat. CIA veteran Sue Webber was joined by new crewmembers Michael O’Connell and Dave Litzau. and someone who had sailed some Beer Cans with us in 2002, returned to main and Jim called tactics.
Russ and Bob
Michael O'Connell
Sue
Lisa Marie
Dave
Andrew
Forbes
We got into position for a very good start in race one and managed to stay close with the competition up to the first mark.
We weren’t too far back on the leeward rounding but lost some ground coming back up wind and weren’t able to recover, finishing fourth.
In the second race, we did not start of as well, so we decided to tack early which seemed to work well for us. We seemed to be gaining some ground on the other boats, but by the time we got to the first mark we were just behind First Light, and we were slow to raise our spinnaker. We kept fairly close on the downwind leg, but lost more ground on our leeward takedown. We managed to keep pace back upwind and had a better set the second time. By the finish, though, we were more than two minutes behind the other boats.
Still, considering that most of the crew was not used to sailing together, we did a pretty good job. Bob was excellent on the mast and Andrew was a huge help in coaching us to get better and concentrate more.
Day 2. Saturday March 20th
Russ had to fly out on Friday night and so the remaining two days were all Jim Forbes. Francis Lum, Beatrice Fraundorfer, and Jurgen Theiss joined in place of Lisa Marie, and Peg on Saturday. Andrew went back to race with Silhouette. With just seven, execution was going to be critical.
CIA went over the start and had to start again. That did not help things, though we kept close. Unfortunately, after the first downwind leg the winds were gusting up to 22 knots and with an inexperienced crew and no number 2 to sail with, we were forced to drop out.
Day 3. Sunday March 21st
Sunday was still windy, but not as much as Saturday. Amy Brozda and Paul Richter, both experienced from past races on CIA, stepped in to crew. There were still only seven. Francis had another day on foredeck. We fouled the start again on Sunday in the first race and started a little behind on race 2. We managed to stay closer to the rest of the boats on the second race, but the lack of having a number 2 meant that we were overpowered again for most of the day. We have a shopping list for the Yachting Cup.