Sailed Sea-Quacious #511 for the first time Friday Night. I had it set up for light air with about 300-320lbs on the outer shouds and inners just snug. Sailed class maximum headstay length with an old set of Shore class sails.
The main has a very low clew which made for some interesting jibes at the start. Headsil was a class mylar 153% since we use a foil. These are dated and worn sails but gotta go with what I got. Main is also fully battened and has a decent shape.
Luckily, I'm sailing against an interesting boat, a Mac 30, built by my friend
Dave MacLeer from Rock Hall. He sails against S2's in Key West and here on the Chesapeak. The Mac 30 currently rates a 162. Mac sails with a regular crew and and knows his boat well. He also sails an asymmetrical chute know and again.
Again this was the first time on the boat and the first time I had seen any of our sails. Set the jib for the first time 20min before the start. Breeze was about 5-8kts. We played up and down the line with the 18 boat fleet.
Mac enjoyed nipping at our heels with is big genoa, getting his bow right under our lee quarter. As the start approached I turned down away from
the line as Mac had pulled up a bit and I was able to quick jibe away as Mac continued down the line. We tacked immediately and headed for the favored committe end hitting line full speed five seconds late. Mac went left we went right, first leg about 2 miles. Halfway down the leg we were in great shape We were to weather and ahead of the fleet who mostly went left. We tacked to the middle. The boat felt even better on starboard
tack. We had Mac in our sights and we were going to cross in front. this was going to be a race. 50 yds from crossing I felt what I thought was sudden weather helm when I realized the pin had fallen out of the rudder
and it had kicked up. The rest is history. By the time the pin was back in Mac was saying bye bye. It happened a second time up the leg as well.
Even given a poor and delayed spinnaker set, we placed in the middle beating out a usually well sailed J27. Wait till next week!
First Sail / First Race
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