RACE RESULTS FROM 3 MAY AT MANSFIELD

   My forecast for the race weather was slightly off. It was cooler than I predicted and some skippers complained, but the winds were as predicted; plenty brisk and good for IOMs, but a bit much for Mik’s USOM.  Under light conditions the USOM has an advantage over most IOMs, but get to 10mph and the heavier IOMs can stand up to the pressure better. The winds were from ESE and provided a long upwind segment where lots of tacks were generally required to follow the non-persistent shifts. Even with a long tacking distance we usually still arrived at the windward mark pretty close together, which made for a tough rounding. We tried using an offset and while that eliminated upwind and downwind crossing it introduced another short spurt and a turn to fight over.

    At the downwind turn, the gate employed generally gave people some options to avoid conflict, so that was less troublesome and the short run to the finish provided some very close results. Golly gee, these skippers are just too good for me. Nobody will move over when I am following them closely, they just sail away and on the starts, at one second they are all just about touching the line, there is just no room for me to squeeze through. I gotta find a bunch of slower sailing buddies.

   As expected Fran Gowash complained about the cold, but still he was able to sail better than most. Bob Shluger did his usual good job of running and scoring the heats, but he did experience some frustration with his performance. At the last minute John Whalen decided to pack up his boat and family and travel to Connecticut. He missed three heats, and only at the end of the day he finally got his stuff together, too late to make an impression. And finally, Ron Rhault, in his usual ah shucks consistent style piled on the finishes to do the best. Ron even helped me set up my boat so that it performed much better than the last time we sailed, thanks Ron! 

   So now we have a few weeks off. Hope to see more people on the 24th

NEXT REGATTA-  GHMYC REGATTA FOUR  -  MANSFIELD HOLLOW SITE -24 MAY 2008