Sunday, August 3rd 8:00 pm
Buzzards Bay Regatta is over, it was an excellent practice series for us in preparation for the Corsair/F-boat Nationals. Let me say that the Race Committee made huge improvements over day 1, and I appreciate that a lot. Yesterday, Saturday, there were three races. The Loose Cannon behaved admirably, windward-leeward courses, the first race was very light air. We tried to utilize the screecher on the second upwind and we did in fact make some gains because of it, but alas not enough. Phil Styne and Bob Gleason were impossible in the light air on the Sprint 750s. It appeared to me that they were match racing with each other to a point that we really should have been able to be competitive but appearances can be really receiving. John Alvord and crew which included his dog, sailing Triceratops made me embarrassed. Team Triceratops is very fast and they make very few mistakes. We, on the other hand… Oh well. The second and third races had more wind and we did some better. In truth, we did not do that bad, but the competition is fierce, and our finishes were consistently 7th or 9th out of 12. Consistency at any level is a good thing so I am O.K. with that. We had a terrible start in the first race and managed to get back to a reasonable position. We also had some really good boat speed in the later races when the wind picked up.
The Loose Cannon is an incredible boat, I have every confidence that it is more than adequate to compete with anybody. I had a little bit of an awakening today while trying to keep the boat doing 18 knots under spinnaker and main. One of my problems is keeping my foot on the gas. Ever ride a bicycle down a long hill and have the handle bars start to wobble? Pedaling is like the last thing you want to do. In this case the amount of horsepower pushing on those sails is not only outside of your control, The acceleration is just incredible, jumps from 13 to 18 knots are instantaneous. I have been racing sailboats for nearly 25 years and I have reasonable racing skills, my multihull experience is limited however and that is causing some issues. Who cares, this is such a freaking hoot, I guess I just have a whole new set of dues to pay.
Little tidbits of information are helping. Yesterday I complained about inconsistent boat speed upwind, like between 8 and 12 knots. One of our top competitors said 10 to 11 is a good target upwind, ( in these conditions), that definitely helped.. At the yacht club some one said that for best upwind speed the apparent wind is at 31 degrees. Not about 30 or less than 35, 31 degrees, someone has been paying much closer attention than I have.
In the first race today, in deference to the suggestions of my crew we made a point to follow Triceratops and try to learn instead of taking a flyer on every leg and hoping for a large shift (in luck) to help us out. 
It worked great to the windward mark, but by then Dino, Orion’s nickname for Triceratops, was so far ahead, something else was needed.
Once the kite was up, I reverted to the previously mentioned flyer technique and got a little bit of pay off, I do seem to be able to keep my foot in it, if the competition is close, and it was about to get real close. I jibed on top of Tri-Me, just to see what he would do to get out of it, then The Flying Circus, another F31-R, jibed on top of me. I am sure his motives were just evil, unlike mine which were entirely for educational purposes. Flying Circus was sucking up my air like a Hoover. Time to heat it up. Trim in, hike out, miss their transom by just enough, and go for the roll to windward. They started to come up, but they realized quickly they would have had to take me to Bermuda to get me to go away. When Flying Circus bore away to go toward the mark I found a place to camp, and hung on their air like a cheap suit. They slowed in the vacuum and we manage to get in front, we jibed and did everything we could to stay between them and the mark. A starboard take down, and an amazingly well executed (big luck) rounding got us headed up wind, moving well and still ahead of Flying Circus. We were covered by several boats and had to tack, so we did. We had adequate room in front of the Flying Circus but it would not have been a good time to screw up. The adrenalin kept us going up wind and we stayed ahead of the Flying Circus to the finish, feeling very buoyant. As it turned out, this was the worst race for Flying Circus, and therefore was their throw out. It doesn’t really mean anything, just a tiny bit deflationary. It was very good for us to get into some close activity and come out ahead. As a team, this regatta is our first. Quite a venue and high level competition to introduce my crew to trimaran racing, and I expect starting Wednesday, we are going to have several more ladder rungs to climb. I am going to be anxiously awaiting the opportunity as soon as I ice my rotator cuffs, stretch out my lower back and get another nap.
-wb-