I want to thank my crew Larry Gamble. Larry and I sailed this race a few years ago on the 154 and had been looking forward to another go. Our story has a few players. Bar-ba-loot,Banditos,Mooretician and a few container ships.
The day could not have been better for the Moores starting with the big boats all waiting for us on the starting line fighting flood in no wind. When it came time for us to start a sweet little puff came along from the South which allowed us to get going. We started along the shore in a small band of relief with kite up port pole just behind Banditos and Moooretician and made our way slowly towards the StFYC.
We gybed out towards the mid bay and promise of Ebb and just made the X buoy about the same time Bar-ba-loot started and gybed to do the same. They sailed out from under us and got the ebb first and were off. We followed and Banditos/Mooretician behind. Once we were all in the ebb we were off! We went under the gate bow to bow with Bar-ba-loot with #1s in a light SW wind at speeds of 10knts over bottom! We stayed middle to north of channel and Bar-ba-loot middle to south. They got a nice left shift and went bow forward while we tacked to clear headlands. As we reached the entrance to the channel the fan turned on and jib changes to #3s were in order. We had a jump on the next two Moores into the big breeze but they came onus all the way to the island which ended up being a fetch in the end. Long wet cold and bumpy fetch with a few big barkers no the way out.
The boats that set up a bit further North gained the most and Bar-baloot dropped back a bit being the south most boat. We rounded just ahead of the next moore with the other two just behind them. We stayed with the #3 for about half the return leg with 10-11 knt average getting just North of channel buoys. Bar-ba-loot set at Island and went streaking off low of rumb and we lost track of them.
Mooretician and Banditos gained on us reaching with the #3 so we decided to set. WOW, we jumped to solid 13-14knts and were off. We were sailing just low of course but started to get lifted as were approached the mid channel markers but we had a ship in the channel to leeward and had to drop to stay clear. We sailed just north of the channel buoys waiting for the ship to pass. As it happened, he had slowed to our speed to pick up his pilot so we were locked North of him. When his pilot was loaded he did not speed up! and another ship was catching him and eventually passed him before they both started off at speed.
By the time were able to set kite again we were two miles from the bridge. Had a few nice rides again to the South Tower when the wind picked up even more and water went flat. Recalling the last time we sailed this race and passed the #85 when they crashed gybing at south tower we chickened out and dropped the kite before the gybe and jib reached tot he finish. Awsome day on the #85.
William Erkelens