Raced the Hill Country Yacht Club's Chapped Cheeks Regatta yesterday. Total of 9 boats entered. In the race was a Sabre 36 from another yacht club that I have mentioned before in these formus, I have always struggled to keep up with them let alone beat them. At the skipper's meeting we were shown a course that would be approx 12 miles long. Forecasted winds were out of the North at 9 shifting to the East at 6. We rigged the boat for light air and headed to the start line. From the time we checked in until the race started, the wind shifted 90 degrees to the West. Forcast NEVER mentioned winds out of the West. Since the start sequence had already started this necessitated a downwind start which I find hard to time.

Sure enough, we missed the start by about 25 seconds. An O'Day was over early and the Sabre and a C&C 36 got a good start. The rest of the field did worse than we did. To make matters worse, we had a hiccup getting the whisker pole set. When we finally got going, the C&C was about 3 boat lengths ahead to port (bad pole set too) and the Sabre was about 20 boat lengths ahead to port of the C&C. Distance to the first mark was around 3 miles.

At about the mile and half mark, we had a pretty good lead on the C&C and had closed the gap on the Sabre to about 10 boat lengths. At about 2 miles we were right on the stern of the Sabre and discussing our plan for taking down the pole and rounding the mark. The Sabre had the preferred line to the Mark but we felt we could pinch him to the rhumb line and force him wide on the exit and possibly get the preferred line exiting the mark. If he wanted to block us he was going to have to turn sharp and give up a lot of momentum. As it turned out, he got a good gybe around the mark and got away cleanly on a port tack. We contemplated a starboard tack back to more open water but decided to follow the Sabre on a port tack as the wind appeard to favor the north side of the lake. We stayed on this tack longer than the Sabre did thinking the wind was better and hoping to make better distance towards Mark #2 (5 miles away). We may have stayed a bit too long as the wind shifted to the SOUTH so we almost had to go backwards to get back into the middle of lake. (Nothing like helping the rest of the fleet catch up to you)

We tacked back early to get headed in the direction we wanted (needed) to go and just resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to tack away again but so would the rest of the fleet eventually so it should all even out. The Sabre was leading at this point and appeared to be in a great position in the middle of the lake. If they could hold this, they did not have to tack again and would be well ahead of the fleet for an easy win. Lucky break number 1 came when we got a HUGE lift just before we had to tack to clear Hobie point (shallow area). The lift actually carried us up and around the point and we were able to keep up boat speed and stay on the North side of the lake which still appeard to still be favored. Lucky break number 2, the Sabre was sitting in dead calm air going nowhere while we continued to move. Lucky break number 3, the wind shifted to the East which meant it caught the fleet and us BEFORE it got to the Sabre, we again set the pole and got within 2 boat lengths of the Sabre when the wind all but died. We sat for about an 45 mins not really going anywhere when the chase boat came by and said the course was being shortned and to go ahead and finish on this leg. That put the finish line about a mile ahead of us.

Shortly after the chase boat left us, we saw 2 boats come out of a cove to the right of us (North) and they were moving quite fast. We quickly preped the sails for what we thought was going to be a good blow from the North. Sure enough, it hit and both the Sabre and us quickly made it to the finish line. By our calculation, we were 1 min and 5 seconds behind the Sabre and depending on the length of the shortened course, we may have actually beat him.

About 2 hours later at the Yacht Club it was confirmed that Lucky had beat the Sabre by 1 min and 19 seconds on corrected time. To make it even sweeter we also found out that the Sabre had not been beat in 7+ years. While it was a personal goal for me to beat the Sabre, my yacht club took it as a huge victory because nobody had been able to beat this boat before.

Yeah, I am still on cloud 9.......:D

I realized after I posted this that the Title is wrong. It was the Chapped Cheeks Regatta. Frostbite was last month.