Monday was a rest day but we had no time off, working away on the boat and replacing some more lines and fittings. Especially up the rig we found some issues that turned into an afternoon-consuming project and overwrote the sailing session we had planned. But there was no wind anyways so it was okay. In the evening there was an opening ceremony with nice food and a good speech from class president Steve Stroebel introducing all the different teams from the different parts of the US, Canada, Argentina, and Chile. We also had a good amount of Youth sailors and 4 female sailors (including myself) but of course there is always room for more!
On the first race day the Bay kept what was promised: Wicked breeze with 11-28kts and nasty chop that saw our closest competitors, the Argentinians, break their spinnaker pole in the first race. Lots of people went swimming that day and got to check whether their hulls needed any polishing but the only boat that really needed polishing was probably ours. Well, as a German saying goes: What I don’t know doesn’t make me hot (I promise it makes more sense in German!). So we never really looked at the underside of our boat neither ashore or on the water meaning we made it through the day without any capsizes or losing crew members. Overall we sailed well, with good speed, fighting for every spot and sending it on the downwind legs.
However, we did sail with a small handicap: On every downwind leg our jibsheet got sucked into our spinnaker block and wrapped multiple times around its sheave which made it very hard to trim the spinnaker and even more difficult to ease the jib. In fact the more we trimmed the spinnaker the tighter the jib got – beyond the point where you would ever trim a jib (even on the upwind). There was not much we could do to prevent it from happening while being on the water so we knew we had some boatwork to do that afternoon. But at least as the races went on we figured out more efficient ways to deal with it. David would go to leeward to fix the issue while I would steer the boat with one hand and hold the kite sheet with my other hand while standing in the footstrap at the back of the boat hanging off the trapeze wire. While I did enjoy the tiller time, for sure that mode was not as fast as normal F18 downwind mode and it definitely did cost us a race win in the third race.
During that third race the famous San Francisco fog rolled in from the bridge and into the left side of the race course. Apparently to the point where you could not see the top mark anymore but that did not concern us. We tacked out as soon as we saw the fog and approached the top mark from the right. In the end 10 boats abandoned the 3rd race so even though there were 4 races planned the race committee made the right call and sent us in.
On day 2 the wind was initially a little more gentle, but again built throughout the day (as most days in San Francisco). We did another 4 solid races and honestly I don’t remember much from that day which is probably because a lot has happened since then and also I was just enjoying it very much! Somehow I did not think about the 4 races that laid ahead (and what that would mean for my poor forearm muscles) but focused on one race, one lap, one leg, one gust, one wave at a time.
Day 3 started slightly suboptimal. Being constantly on the road, working from the weirdest places, and being full on for quite some time with two new jobs, it sometimes takes its toll. So that morning I had a little mental meltdown (it was also THAT time of the month for me). Poor Ravi had to deal with that but as always was the best supporting partner I could wish for. Anyway, during the ride to Richmond Yacht Club I had a bit of time to get over it and my mindset back on track.
So when it was time to race we were able to pull off some more solid results while the guys in 2nd place had some issues with their boat. This forced them to abandon two of the 4 races which put us ahead of them in the overall rankings. It was a marginal lead only upheld by their two DNCs which by the way was also the case with the Argentinians in 4th. These guys would be only 3 points behind us once the second discard would come into play. The regatta allowed for 2 discards which means your worst score gets deleted after 4 races and your second worst score gets deleted after 12. Since we sailed very consistently throughout the whole regatta (our worst result was a 7th) we had all to play for and could take a little more risk going into the last day of racing compared to the guys behind us.
Check out part 3 tomorrow!
segellena 