2016 Spring Race Day 1

First Spring Race Day

March 4, 2016

The day began with Rama, Bogey and Little Girl getting their bottoms brushed clean with Bill’s handy home-made shop broom contraption and because of no wind the racing was delayed about two hours. 

It was a beautiful early spring day – with very little wind on a largely becalmed Degray lake.  Five boats in all were on the line: Little Girl with skipper Bill and wife Roxanne driving, Rama with Bob Rhody skipper and John Bomar driving, Bogey with George Boger driving and Matt as crew, No Lizard with Ron Nash single handing, and ZCat with father Frank and son Eddie Zeiler driving.  The wind was from a general south/southwest direction and our new race committee chairman Eddie set a good course with a starting line near the middle of the main channel of the lake, one mark to windward toward Iron Mountain and one mark to leeward of the starting line toward the state park visitor center. 

On a running timed start with everyone (but Eddie with a bad watch) relying on their atomic clocks for the exact start time, Rama and No Lizard led the pack off the line, both on starboard, headed west.  Little Girl and Bogey followed about 15 boat lengths back, getting caught too far from the line in the very light wind, and ZCat, unsure of the exact starting time due to her faulty clock, trailed the pack.  It was a steady but very light wind at @ 4 mph to the first mark and ZCat, always amazingly slick and fast in such conditions caught up to Rama on the first leg and rounded just ahead at the first mark.  No Lizard rounded third and a bit behind.  Going back there was hardly enough wind to keep a foresail shape and Rama resorted to flying a wing on wing using a whisker pole to at least take advantage of the sail area.   By the end of the two leg race Rama had regained the lead and was first to cross the finish line with ZCat close behind followed by No Lizard, Bogey and Little Girl. 

On the second race, same course because of the very light wind, George and Matt on Bogey got a great jump on the field leaving the left side of the line with good angle and speed.  Near the windward mark everyone bunched up and stalled and the wind got really squirrelly.  Still on the left however, Bogey got a break and rounded the mark first.  On the downwind Bogey and No Lizard in second split and George got another break with fresh wind and went on to be first across the finish line.  Before the race Bogey’s crewman Matt had made a joke about always filming the racing from behind but on this day he spent much of the second race in the cabin filming George as “leader of the pack.”  The rest of the group finished pretty bunched up.    

Later, as Ron on No Lizard was leaving the dock he was heard to comment “guess that dirty bottom got me today.”  It was a painful admission for someone used to being up front  in the fleet.  The recent class on racing given by Dave Sample had emphasized the importance of a low drag, clean bottom if you want to be competitive and win on the water.  The moral of the story?  “A clean bottom washes away many sins in sailboat racing and gets you ahead in working toward the mark.”

The numbers:

What a light air duel between Zcat and Bogey!  They split the two races finishing 1, 2 and 2, 1 – which made them tied for first place, each with 3.5 points.  With point ties being settled by lowest corrected time, the winner of Race Day #1 is Zcat with 3,145 seconds vs Bogey’s 3,250.  Congrats Eddie.