Shields Fleet 9 gets underway on Wednesday night in a light, shifty, south-southwesterly breeze. Albert Nichols photo
By Mike Toppa/Bomba Charger 156
The forecast for race time delivered as predicted. The light air from the south and incoming current going north meant for relatively long upwinds and shorter downwinds. It was 156’s 2nd race of the season. After quickly launching the boat and putting the rig in, there wasn’t a lot of fine tuning done and it was obvious as we didn’t feel fast in race 1. So before last night’s race we spent some time tuning the rig. We weren’t getting the mast pre bend I wanted so I added a 1/4″ chock behind the mast to help promote bend with the headstay in it’s longest setting. The light air last night was a good test for that set up and it seemed to work out – we finally had our upwind speed back that was missing in race 1.
Jamie Hilton is in Alaska this week so Moose McClintock and his group of URI sailors filled in on 217, and we battled with them most of the race. Moose and we played the right side on the first beat and benefited from nice puffs and a right shift once we were south of the bridge. We may have also had some current relief. Moose controlled us pretty well and tacked on us a few times but as we got closer to the top mark he crossed and went the extra short distance to the layline, eliminating an extra tack while we still had to do two. However, lucky for us, the wind went about 15 degrees further right and we were able to just lay and rounded a boat length ahead.
Bomba Charger 156 runs downwind on the flood tide. Albert Nichols photo
We gybed quickly to take advantage of the right shift but it was a mistake as we didn’t take into account the chopped up air from boats lining up on the starborad layline. 217 jumped us there, eventually gybed and crossed by a few lengths and gybed back into a safe position to leeward and ahead. We sailed a long gybe under the bridge and had a slight speed advantage to even things up but he was still inside as we approached the mark. At that point it was either follow him around or attack so we luffed hard a few times and were able to get the action way past the layline—enough that we both had to gybe back onto starboard. We had just enough distance between us to break the overlap and were able to round ahead. So it was pole on the headstay reaching during the luff, quick square back and gybe, jib up, pole down, kite down, gybe again and pull the sails in to get around the mark—and Holley and Suzy did a great job pulling it off and getting it all done.
After 6 lead changes, the rest of the race was easier as we were able to put some space between us and 217 and just work on speed and keeping in touch with the rest of the fleet. As always, Jeremy did a great job tactically and with set up. The bonus was great RC work dealing with the changing conditions and a finish line that was close to home and a one tack fetch to the mooring. We didn’t get our normal Wed night sunset but it didn’t matter, it’s always good to be Shields racing.
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