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TAYC Spring 2011 (2010 Rum Bucket) Consistency in the form of good average finishes was important in the 5 race no throw out TAYC Penguin Spring Invitational sailed on May 7, 2011. A sparkling spring day but the dying, puffy and shifty northerly made that goal extremely difficult. The ability to stay in the puffs and a lot of luck in predicting where the next one would land frustrated all of the six teams who raced under the watchful eye of Tot O’Mara. Everyone had at least one good race but limiting the not so good and really bad races helped separate the fleet. Two time International stars Charlie Krafft and Donna Mackenzie sailed a flawless regatta in four of the six races but sadly matched their 4 race total with an equal number of points in race 3. Charlie summed up what we all experienced at some (some more than once) time during the regatta, “We missed the first shift and then got caught out of phase, never able to get to the favored side of the fleet to catch the next shift” It can happen to the very best. Veteran Penguin sailor Bill Lane and Patrick Firth got off to a blazing start with a bullet in race one and a second in race 3 but found themselves a little behind the pace in the other races. Scott Williamson broke in new, very young crew, Charlie Williamson and posted very good finishes in race 4 and 5, ending on a good note. Note to Charlie: Don’t play with the weather mark. Jeff Cox and Luke Dufour stayed near the top for much of the time in Fox in Sox but faded in all but race 3. We were all disappointed that David couldn’t make it but very happy he made his boat available to Jeff. Sandy and Debbie McAllister had a great second race and showed great intelligence by heading in early and missing an unfortunately scrambled race 5. Tot said the best thing that could be said about race 5 when she announced at the three minute gun, “Three minutes and the weather mark is dead to weather.” The breeze promptly died, backed from the south to the north, turning the beat into a run, then veered part way back to leave us on a one sided beat with a run on the first reach and a port beat to the downwind mark. There was almost no opportunity to recover positions. It dropped out completely after Charlie won and Scott placed second leaving Gray Benson and me sailing backward as Gray and Tot pointed out, thank you very much. At the awards ceremony when Tot said, “You were actually sailing backward, Paul”. I mentioned that Gray had already made that very accurate observation. Bill and Pat roared up on the last gasp of air erasing our 20 length lead. Fortunately for us the breeze kicked in from the south just in the nick of time and we beat them by a couple of lengths. By the way, Gray called most of the tactics on Black Side Down. End of story. This was the make up for the cancelled 2010 Rum Bucket. The 2011 Rum Bucket will be sailed on November 19 at AYC. Penguin Invitational |
Penguin (6 boats) (top)
Series Standing - 5 races scored
Information is provisional
and subject to modification
Regatta results last updated: Saturday, May 07, 2011 1:31:19 PM
CDT
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Notes
- Scoring System is ISAF Low Point 2009-2012