“It is great when the plan comes together. It’s even better when it works to perfection”

Our plan for this week started with getting to the boat on time. Although our “Reverse Vanderbilt Start” last week was exciting, we didn’t think it warranted becoming part of our normal protocol. Change is not always for the better you know.

After a close to “on time” arrival at the dock we then had a late crew change. Getting regular crew late in the season is always a challenge on 217, as several of our regular crew have returned to school. Kids these days far too responsible. In their absence we’d signed on one old hand from 217 days gone by, Michael “Danksy” Danks, and another one-time Shields sailor who will remain nameless but may be best known in the old circles for once having jumped off the Newport Bridge to make a Shields race. At the last minute, our extremely capable and highly entertaining bridge jumper had to cancel, at 4:10pm mind you. We did the only thing we could do, we switched in Mrs. Hilton who was going to watch the race from her RIB. Thereby going from a 205 lb Volvo Ocean Race veteran & America’s Cup winning bowman to a 106 lb one time Comet sailor as our 5th.

Unluckily the PeteCast had the wind in the upper range and the RC postponed for too much wind, so getting lighter and smaller was not our hope. But as it turned out, things were going our way.

When we got to the racecourse, our tactician/mainsail trimmer, Mike Marshall developed a sense that good things were going to happen on the right, as is often the case. The trick was avoiding the rush of incoming/adverse current in the deep water near the Green Bell. We had the wind at around 220-225. We had the line—before the RC boat changed its rode length —at an axis of about 140-330. We liked the pin but were not sure we’d be able to get out of there when we wanted, and we wanted to get right. We ended up in the boat third of the line and maybe a little toward mid line at the start.

We were able to hold our lane off the starting line — THE MOST IMPORTANT THNGS IN ONE DESIGN RACING. Be able to hold your lane! We knew we had to observe the green “can” toward the southeast corner of Rose and we knew we did not want to tack twice, if we could avoid it, to get around it. Luckily some nice people had anchored their very large white Jongert built ketch at the exact spot that marked the layline to the “can”. Any rumor spread by Peter Schott that we had planted them there pre-race is purely FAKE NEWS. However, fortune favors the lucky!

So we started, stayed on starboard until the people on the ketch started to get really nervous we might hit them and tacked. Several anxious minutes later we cleared the can by about 3 feet, maybe 4. Not 6. When we tacked onto Port the compass read 270-272. The boats on our port hip were looking fairly strong but Mike Marshall had said they would before the race even started. When we passed the can we were down to 280’ish. When we tacked onto starboard out near the main channel we’d been headed to 295’ish. Luck was once again in our favor, although it could have been uncanny layline calling by Mike Marshall as I think about it, twice. We laid the bell off Clingstone with 1⁄2 boat length to spare. From there all we had to do was not f’ it up, so we didn’t. Martha Fortin, bow person / jib trimmer and the true heart of the 217 team, and Danksy had stellar sets and drops.

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The RC moved the second windward mark in, so going right again was not going to work as it did the first leg. The wind at the bottom was nearly exactly the same direction as it was coming off the line. We stayed left to avoid the incoming current, went to the layline and tacked. Gun! Boom! Trophy please! Thank you!

For rig settings we’d gone 5MM shorter than “base” on the headstay and were plus four turns tighter on the D1s. At times we were a little underpowered as the breeze lightened up but were aided there by the extremely flat water. We felt the boat was moving very well last night.

Our thanks and gratitude to the Bill O’Hanley and his stellar Race Committee team. Our continued thanks and gratitude to our Fleet 9 leadership. And might I add, in this season of fleet elections where our fleet leadership is concerned, ” 4 more years!” “4 more years!”

“And that’s the way it is”, respectfully submitted from the 217 on September 16, 2020. Thank you very much.

Jamie Hilton