J-Fest - Race No. 4 on Sunday, April 14, 2002
It sure was exciting being near the front of the fleet, while it lasted. Race #4 started in steady breeze at 210, with true line and a true course. The fleet spread out well along the line. Nice job, Matt Jones and Encinal YC. Only one general recall is a nice job by the competitors, too. A clear, beautiful day with gorgeous views of the East Bay hills, SF and a still green Angel Island. Congratulations to Nantucket Sleighride for the win. The south side of the course was favored with more breeze, which resulted in plenty of port tackers at the windward buoy. Boats on the right that correctly called the layline, found themselves gassed by boats on the left that crossed ahead and then tacked on that layline. And for those who could not quite make that orange buoy, there was an endless line of starboard tackers to watch pass by. The game of follow the leader from the orange, windward to mark to the yellow off-set mark took a nasty turn when some boats dove low to the off-set. The boats behind, unable to see the off-set mark because of the boats ahead, followed the lead boats, only to find themselves too low to point back up into the wind and tide. A quick game of musical chairs then played out for about 10 mid-fleet boats that had lost sight of the preventer buoy and had to re-round into the on coming rush hour traffic. Kind of like running across a line of batting cages at batting practice. Lots of passing and crossing downwind. Plenty of yelling and rule calling at the corners, but no major collisions or major damage. Between the boats that missed the windward mark and the boats that missed the off-set mark, the fleet got spread out, reducing the conflicts. After the seminars, we did not see many lee bows or too-close calls by port tackers. Maybe two days of traffic school helped. A race well layed and well played. Dana Sack