WED Night Race -16th December 2013

First Race of the year and a new series. Yolo tends to enter the non spinnaker class for Wednesday night racing as we cannot always tell how many crew or ability we will have for a Wednesday night. With shorter races, we find it more fun to compete with no spinnaker. Nice conditions, moat unlike CT. A SE, around 14-20 knots.. bit patchy but flat water and humid conditions with the odd light raain cloud.. Really nice fun conditions to sail. The wind was at it's strongest at the leeward end of the line and it looked like it would head as one progresses up the beat.. most unlike CT.. so we made for a leeward start hitting the line at full speed on the gun.. allowing us to quickly get away and settle in for a good beat to the Harken mark. as the beat progresses those that were to weather of us were feeling the effects of the header and were "bows down" whoch was good for us.. Eventually we tacked on a shift and covered the fleet, tacking again to cover and lay the first mark, with us rounding a few boat lenths ahead. Neccessity was in spinnaker class so they were able to quickly overtake us, with us working hard to try and remain ahead of Touch and Go. Neccessity rounded the wing mark with their assym and gybed but the angle was too tight for them to hold their assym forcing them to bear away and drop losing them time as they still did not have their jib up and they were falling to leeward of the rhumb line.. in the meanwhile Yolo managed to stay a boat lenth ahead of Touch and go at the leeward mark which we gybed at.. With Neccessity struggling to get sorted it did not take long to pass them.. all the while trying to stay ahead of Touch and go, we managed to work the odd gust better giving us an additional boat lenth. We rounded the leeward mark first with the fleet right on our tail.. We had a good beat. Touch and go and Neccessity overstood the weather mark by far, costing them huge distance giving us a easy line honours... rounded the weather mark and to the finish. It was a well sailed race aboard. 1st on corrected time. Aboard were: Ian, Dale, Phillipa, Sieger and Steve White(our guest of Vendee fame) All worked well aboard. We are slowly understanding how best to keep the boat going..