Oakland YC Sunday brunch

So, we have done three of the five OYC sunday brunch series races. The first one was a pretty light reach fest in which we got our usual stellar start only to just get run down by the larger boats in our division. Cameron drove the race and did a good job with the down wind start and holding off the bad guys for a pretty long time. We finished an honorable third in a race that was very much not our conditions.

One thing that has changed this year is that we have RT sailing with Jeff, Cameron, and I. RT may not be a long time sailor like us, but he is learning the ropes and has the right attitude in regards to beer and disdain for our competitors. RT will drive a race before the end of the season whether he is ready or not.

I missed the second race of the series as I was just flying in from Malaysia at about the start gun. Steve flew up from L.A. to sail with Jeff, RT and Cameron and apparently acquitted himself well as they led the race from start to finish for team Gonzo's first win of the year. The highlight was starting from out of the fairway of the marina for the the reverse start while the rest of the fleet bunched up at the pin. from what I was told it was pretty much over from that point on.

The third race was the kind of race that I always claimed that we should win if we ever had to sail in those conditions. A light air westerly that made it so you had to tack and gybe in the Estuary. Not the usual reaches that we have been having for a while now. Throw in the fact that the OYC selected a course that had three laps in it, so boat handling became important as well. It seemed that we should be able to sail the kind of race that we had always claimed we she win for once.

As it was we caught a bad shift right at the start and ended up being pretty late crossing the line. Add in the fact that we got fouled by the guy who looks like Spock and where forced to tack and things didn't look to good at first. For most of the first beat we tended to get ping ponged around by the other boats in our start and never really got in phase. Jeff, who was driving, did a good job though and once we finally got by a couple of boats and got into phase with the shifts at the top of the beat it all started to come good.

With three sets and drops to do our boat handling really helped set us up against the bad guys. With RT working the pit, Cameron trimming, and me working the bow we easily put time on the bad guys at every mark rounding to eventually overtake all of them to take the gun.

So, we are now solidly in first place with three of the five races finished. Next week we will be racing with a new headsail which is actually a used J-24 genoa as I have finally gotten around to getting a wire headstay on the boat. This means that we are actually going to be racing with a real full sized headsail for the first time on Sunday. it should be interesting to see how we do with it.

I don't have lot of pictures but here is a link to the OYC racing pages that has a series of pictures of us in them. Plus you can see the results here.