Puddle Duck Race 2 - Page 4

Since it was just Ken and I left, we started at the beach with a Le-Mans start.

Rounded the mark and heading to windward.

Ken is an excellent racer, and his new sail performs better than the Sunfish one he was using. The Sunfish sail would make him windvane and go into irons, this sail has a foot that is a couple of feet shorter.

I went into irons a couple of times, the problem I was having is that it was blowing hard enough, when I would come thru the wind, the hull would stall out and immediately go into irons. I was pulling the sail in by hand to force the bow over, then I would have to fall off a bit to build speed back up, then I could continue on the other tack. After doing that a couple of times, I discovered that if I sheeted in very tightly, just past half way thru my turn the wind would catch the other side and push the bow over, completing my tack. Doing it that way, I didn't have to fall off, and so I stopped loosing ground against Ken.

Damage was already done, he was far enough ahead of me that I couldn't catch him.

Rounding the leeward mark, I came in 2nd, about a minute behind Ken. Was better than last time, I lost by about 5 minutes. Some day I'll beat him, might be pretty soon, I am working on another secret weapon....

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