Bookend Finishes for Everyone

Despite being 100 yards behind the leaders at the last mark, Bernadette fought back and came in second.

The wind was so fluky at Massapoag that every skipper seemed to have their own personal breeze. No sooner than the course was set that the wind shifted to the right, requiring the course to be reset. Then it shifted to the left, requiring another reset. After re-squaring the line for the third time in two races, everyone involved just decided to leave the course as is and make the best of whatever wind we had.

Sometimes the course was perfectly square, but most of the time, there was a pronounced right shift that made for some interesting tactics.  The conventional wisdom of sailing the long tack first seemed to be the first to go, as skippers who sailed a short port tack immediately after the start found themselves on the starboard layline very quickly making the trip to the mark a drag race.  Skippers who went to the left were often penalized, but the ever changing rewarded them occasionally with a left at the upwind mark.

A betting man would have lost his shirt betting on the races today. The complete and utter inability of the wind to control itself resulted in the finishing order being anybody's guess.  Everyone who raced today got at least one first place and almost everyone got a matching last place finish.

In the nine races run today, Bernadette Levesque finished the day with 3 firsts. Mark Stoughton took 2, and John Houstle, Dan Abram, Harvey Davidson and Alex Sellar each had one.

Full results are here: http://mycsunfish.blogspot.com/p/sailwave-results-for-2014-saturday.html

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