Light Air on Day 2

We all slept well last night after our 4 race battle in yesterday's cold, blustery breeze and awoke to hope that we would have more moderate conditions for today. However, the Baltic Sea would have none of it, as it fizzled out today and could only offer up the opposite end of the breeze spectrum - a dying northerly for us to race in off the Kiel Lighthouse. Both yellow and blue fleets were able to get 1 race off each before it became too light to race. Other fleets got no racing in. We were the second group, so we got the lighter, more painful conditions thanks to fading gradient as the low passed to our distant north east. It may have been the lightest conditions we have ever raced in for a complete race.

We started down at the pin hoping for some pressure to come down around the point, which is off to the left of the course. It looked like 2-4kts pretty uniform across the course, so we thought the key to the race would be a lane off the lane going fast. After a slow acceleration at the start, we were forced to crack off and reach down below the boats that won the pin to find some clear air. Soon after though, we found some speed and were looking good on the fleet. WE SHOULD HAVE TACKED, but we kept going and over-leveraged ourselves to the left side (thinking that the breeze would remain steady). It was a tough call at the time, but a no-brainer in hindsight (CROSS WHEN YOU CAN!). Instead we kept going into an unforeseen hole and lost the majority of the fleet. We rounded the windward mark in last!

Knowing the type of racing in the boat, we kept fighting and hit some hit some shifts on the run and got right back into the middle of the fleet. We had a great upwind, where we stayed in a vein of breeze and sailed around numerous boats. We could have been higher if we had not lost our lane on the starboard layline to a Swedish boat who seemed to pinch for no other reason than to sail extra distance and screw us up - to each their own and we will avoid that barney from now on. Our run was solid (net even), losing boats and then catching others thanks to some solid speed and tactics around the finish line. It is amazing how much is always up for grabs in these races, you can never give up!

We ended up 17th in the race, were probably around 14th for a bit, but we were also last in the beginning, so a solid race for us in theses early days of the Euro-campaign. We are now in 44th and hope to continue to move up the standings as we reacquaint ourselves into the boat.

Hopefully the breeze is raceable over the next few days! Forecast is calling for a light northerly for the next few days, hopefully stronger than today!

Boat handling wise in these conditions need to focus on:
-starting acceleration
-smooth gybes
-avoiding taking coachboat chop over the bow (Zander needs to move fore-aft faster)

tactically:
-Cross when you can

-Zander