The Kona winds had lulls and gusts out of the west southwest at 16-22 knots. This made getting out of the slips difficult and the Olson 30’s turned their boats around manually in their slips in order to sail out. The 2.45 mile course was U-V which headed to the G-7 buoy towards the mountain to round it to port before heading out to the Ninini Lighthouse buoy. The starting pin was placed rather far back which made the race committee end of the line heavily favored with almost a straight shot to the first buoy rounding.
When Bonjolea II tacked to the starting line, Ozone tacked just below them to leeward. When Ozone took Bonjolea II up, Bonjolea II tacked away and then quickly tacked back towards G-7. Ozone took a header and when they tacked back they couldn’t quite make it and they had to duck the oncoming Speedy who was on starboard tack with rights. And Ozone over stood before tacking back to G-7 and watched the other boats pulling away.
After rounding the G-7 buoy spinnakers went up on most of the boats. And on leaving the harbor the boats hardened up their chutes with Bonjolea II in the lead followed by Fiasco, Speedy, Ozone and Double Espresso. But Speedy rounded up 3 times and they had to cut their spinnaker line that had a knot in it. And Ozone and Double Espresso passed them. Fiasco also had some spinnaker issues in the gusty winds and they took their chute down.
After rounding the Ninini Lighthouse buoy, Double Espresso without using their spinnaker, was very close to Ozone and ahead of Speedy. And after rounding the G-7 buoy again to go downwind, Fiasco didn’t use their spinnaker and Ozone thought they were gaining and that they might catch them. As they approached the Ninini Lighthouse buoy Ozone’s crew suggested taking down their chute early in the strong winds. And Ozone’s skipper Chris Jordan should have listened to them as it was tough to get the spinnaker down and they sailed a ways beyond the buoy before rounding, letting Fiasco gain again.
In order to finish the boats had to tack back essentially parallel to the end of the mole as the finishing line was G-7 and the mid mole. Bonjolea II, clearly loving the heavy air, finished in first place followed by Fiasco about 2 minutes and 46 seconds later on handicap time. Ozone took 3rd place almost 2 minutes behind Fiasco. Double Espresso and Speedy rounded out the fleet.
Getting back into the slips was a challenge as it was now downwind instead of our usual upwind conditions. Ozone dropped their mainsail early but still came in too fast and ended up crashing into the dock and taking a chunk out of their bow. And to add insult to injury, the water line on the dock broke and an embarrassing “old faithful” like geyser mortified Ozone’s skipper Chris Jordan even more. He was not having a good day... Fortunately his crew found the water main shut off and the ever resourceful Thor Temme went to the store and brought back parts and the water line was fixed in no time.
Thank goodness for excellent crew!
-Chris
Click for complete results and the RaceQs replay on the
Club Racing page.