Yesterday one of the clubs in our area held their annual Wilkerson
Memorial Cup regatta. It was a small affair, about ten boats competing
I think. This was the thrid time they tried to hold it, the first time
was abandoned for lack of wind and the 2nd was abandoned for surplus
of wind (see "Light Boat, Heavy Air" for that story).

I had a good crew of 4 experienced sailor, all but 1 had sailed with
me on the Santana 23 (now officially named 'Blue Yonder') before.

The start was scheduled for noon, but was delayed for lack of wind.
The wind was forecast to be in the 2~5 mph range and that was
accurate. The wind direction was fairly steady though, and they
decided it was enough to race a short course of about 3 miles or so,
layed out in an triangle.

The start bouy and port tack was favored by wind direction, but it
looked to me like there was definitely stronger wind on the left-hand
side of the course. So I planned to tack onto starboard just below the
start line (and just ahead of 3 other boats reaching along the start),
go for the bouy, and continue a ways to the left before tacking to
port onto a course closer towards the windward mark. One boat, a
Hunter 34, got a near-perfect port-tack start right at the bouy and
cleared ahead of us.

The wind was 2~4 knots, we had crew weight on the low side to heel the
boat and keep the sails full.

The plan worked fairly well, we went about 150 yards and tacked onto
port, which aimed us almost right at the next mark in a streak of good
wind. We outpointed the boats that had been with us at the start,
including an Ensign which was our closest competitor, and gained a lot
on the Hunter 34. We got a persistent header which took us away from
the mark but we rolled past the Hunter 34 and tacked to go around the
W mark.... onto a close reach... no spinnaker!

The next leg was a close reach with the genoa eased past the lifelines
and me trying hard to judge the gusts & lulls. We pulled the board up
about 1/2 and I tried to not obsess on the Hunter 34 which was now
gaining on us, with the Ensign right behind.

The triangle or gybe mark was next, and I totally misjudged the true
wind angle. We had been on a close reach and I judged the wind to be
mostly astern; that we would gybe onto the other tack and be able to
set the spinnaker. We discussed this maneuver and how to get the chute
around the forestay and the pole up smoothly.

We gybed... or tried to. Part of the problem was that we sailed into a
wind hole, part of the problem was the misjudged angle. The boat
almost coasted to a stop, and like a newbie I was focussed on the
sails rather than the course to the nxt mark. I turned us 45 degrees
to far, the sails did not fill well, we almost came to a stop. The
answer was to gybe back and set the spinnaker normally, and this
entailed a lot of crew movement that shook the boat and took the wind
out of the sails... yes this old expression is literally true. We
never did regain all of our speed but the spinnaker did pull and we
kept our lead.

The Ensign put her spinnaker up and also stayed on starboard tack,
reaching off to the further left both because the sails pulled better
at that heading and to stay in what looked like better wind. At one
point they were about 30 yards off our stb aft quarter and going a
little faster, but not aimed at the next mark.

I like to keep in close communication with crew, asking what they see
and how they think the boat is doing. The last upwind leg should favor
us but the wind looked spotty. The left still looked stronger (much
darker on the water) and I voted for a plan to go that way (on
starboard tack) but it would mean getting the spinnaker gear 'cleaned
up' quickly when the priority was to not shake the boat with a lot of
crew movement.

We kept our spinnaker up until the last possible second. Our crew did
a marvelous job lowering the daggerboard, re-tensioning the main
halyard & outhaul, shifting the genoa over and hoisting it, then
getting the pole down & cleared. We actually accelerated on a close-
hauled (but low & footing) course while discussing the plan for
getting to the finish line.

My bowman, whom I've sailed with for years going back to college days
& also in the Lightning, said "Dude, look where we're going. We're
aimed almost at the committee boat. I say you'd be stupid to tack."
After looking carefully at the wind, the angle we were sailing, and
our speed, I had to agree. So we stayed on that tack, and a wind
streak actually built up right to windward of us and we bustled along
at about 2.5 knots. We had to tack eventually, with about 50 yards to
go, and crossed the line right at the stern of the committee boat.

We looked back, the Hunter had gone far off to the right on port tack,
the Ensign had tacked to starboard but gotten a big header and was in
much softer wind. They had bad luck at the leeward mark and spent
several minutes stalled there. We won by quite a margin and when the
corrected time was calculated, we were still first by a little over 3
minutes. There was a Cape Dory 30 ketch sailing in the fleet too, made
me think of Mundo. He finished in 4th place, a very good showing for
those conditions.

It would have been more fun to have more wind, but the Santana 23 is a
super light-air boat. We kept chugging along even when there seemed to
be no wind at all, gliding at 1.5 knots over a sea of glass. Thanks
very much to the good crew!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King