GERRY BROWNE REGATTA
APRIL 13, 2002
The fog lifted and a light breeze grew stronger as we prepared for our first "official" race with our new sails and bottom. We had to drill part of the mast track out in order to accommodate the racing main and an 11:30 start made the morning preparation a little bit rushed. The crew consisted of Tony, Russ, Kevin Baker, Michele, Kevin Mahony, Mike, Darryl, Paul, Scott, Jim Forbes, and, our "lucky charm" for one of the Beer Cans last year, John Bennet. John helped with tactics and also gave some useful tips related to the new sails his company had just made for CIA.
This would be our first test of the year against Warren Gross and Silhouette, as well as are first time competing against the newest B40.7, First Light.
Antonio pulled off another one of his trademark great starts forcing First Light over the line early. We stayed ahead of Warren through the first upwind leg and were poised to really make a run. We were fouled by the Shock 35 Katmandu at the mark, however, and lost some ground. From that point on, it just wasn't our day.
First Light and Silhouette got past us on the downwind leg, but we weren't far behind at the leeward mark.
Russ drove for the next upwind leg and we gained ground on Warren, nearly passing him as we approached the windward mark again.
Unfortunately, Warren was able to out point us and we were forced to tack early and gave up much of the ground we had gained. We trailed the other Beneteaus the rest of the way to the finish of the first race.
We got a short break between the two races to get refreshed.
The fog rolled back in, but Tony again pulled of a good start in race 2.
Unfortunately, we separated from the rest of the fleet early and by the time we got to the mark were well behind most of the other boats. Things really started to get ugly at the rounding, however, when we were not able to raise our chute on time and had to jibe with the Genoa.
Bad turned to worse at the leeward mark as we got our headsail jammed in the feeder. We weren't able to turn up wind for several minutes as we watched our fleet disappear ahead of us and were passed by most of the class 3 boats.
The rest of the day turned into a valuable practice session as Russ got to steer the remainder of the race with the team down by four touchdowns in the second half. We salvaged some of our dignity by catching up to and passing French Bred at the finish.
We finished 9th out of 11 in both races and we all agreed that more practice would be needed in the next three weeks of we were to have any chance of competing in the Yachting Cup. Click here for complete race results.
