As we headed out into the central bay with single-reefed main only, sailing to the north, we spotted one small fleet of boats headed upwind to the west, like this one-- don't know which fleet this was.
We sailed downwind to the leeward mark for some of the boats-- a gate a short ways northeast of the Blossom Rock buoy, and there we tacked around until the J120 fleet showed up-- 'Chance' here leading the fleet and beginning to douse her kite as she approached the gate.
Her kite was fully doused and stowed belowdecks as she rounded the southernmost mark of the gate.
My photo album website has more time lapse photos showing the sequence of this kite douse and you can see it at
http://cbergstedt.myphotoalbum.com/
Mr. Magoo was second around the mark and as you can see the winds are not as strong as they were the day before and the boats are not as heeled over while sailing upwind.
This boats with no visible name printed on her was next around the mark.
Jolly Mon's crew was still dousing her kite as she rounded the mark.
This J120 was shrimping with the kite as they approached the mark-- not a good thing to do. You can see a sequence of photos of this kite douse on my photo album website at this url:
http://cbergstedt.myphotoalbum.com/
After all the J120s had rounded the mark and headed upwind, we hung around the leeward gate to watch other fleets approach and douse kites, and next came the 1D35 fleet with Sweet Sensation in the lead with crew dousing the kite while approaching the gate and getting a bit of it in the water.
This 1D35 DIABLITA did a lot of shrimping as they approached the mark and, again, you can watch a time lapse sequence on my photo album website.
Here her crew is just about finishing with pulling the kite out of the water as they are starting to round the mark-- the owner was probably a bit unhappy with the crew at this point.
ZSA ZSA was looking good as she rounded the mark, but was near the back of the fleet if not last.
While these two fleets were rounding the leeward marks, the J105 fleet was jockeying around just west of the shore of Treasure Island, waiting for their second race of the day to start.....
... and eventually they did start with the 30+ boat fleet all heading upwind from the start line and spread across about 300 yards of the bay.
The Express 37 fleet was now approaching the leeward gate as the J105 fleet was headed upwind and the two fleets were likely to intermingle as a result.
Here one of the Express boats is creating an interesting sculpture with their kite as they are in process of dousing it, and it seemed at risk of shrimping...
... but the crew seemed to be pulling the kite on board without dropping it into the water as they move toward the mark....
.. and get more of it aboard as they approach the mark...
The crew of the boat is still dousing the kite as they start to round the north mark of the gate....
... and still have a bit more to douse as they are almost around the gate.
Meanwhile the J105 fleet is beating upwind....
... while LIFT IT is approaching the southernmost mark of the gate with kite onboard and about to be stuffed belowdeck...
.. and looking good as she rounds the mark.
We kept hanging around this gate, figuring that this would be the leeward gate/mark for the other fleets that we could see heading downwind, and eventually for the J105 fleet when they came back downwind, and it seemed like a race committee boat was widening the gate for the J105 fleet, but then we start to see some of the large boats in the IRC fleet rounding the Blossom Rock Buoy, and the race committee boat eliminates the gate altogether a bit later, so we head for Blossom Rock and catch a few of the bigger boats rounding, like this one in process of dousing her kite as she approached the mark....
.... and looks good as she rounds it.
As we head for Blossom Rock, we spot another portion of the IRC fleet heading upwind from way to the north of Treasure Island where their leeward mark must have been set, and soon they are passing us, like TKO here....
.....and COPERNICUS...
....and Kokopelli--- all looking good!
Blackhawk was leading the J105 fleet and a number of boat lengths ahead as she approached the leeward mark and pulled out her roller-furled jib...
....and then began to douse her kite....
... having it all on deck as she approached the mark....
... and completely doused and stowed as she reached the mark and began rounding it-- textbook crew work.
The next three boats were approaching the mark within a few boat lengths of each other...
.. and WONDER began her spinnaker douse after unfurling her jib...
... and was nicely pulling it on deck as she approached the mark...
... and was stuffing the last of it belowdecks as she rounded the mark, while while the trailing boat was still in mid-douse as she rounded the mark-- probably doing a late douse to gain some ground on the other boats.
Here a group of J105s are rounding the mark and approaching the mark, some in process of dousing the kite, and some already doused and being stowed away as they approach the mark.
Eventually, there is quite a traffic jam at the mark as a large group of boats approach and round together, some of the boats having to swing wide of the mark...
... and then they spread out as they head upwind to avoid sailing in dirty air from a boat in front of them.
We stayed at the Blossom Rock mark until the last J105, Melilani, approached the mark with jib unfurled and preparing to douse the kite....
.....but the kite is not coming dowin as she passes the mark.....
....and she is many boat-lengths past the mark and still going downwind as they finally are beginning to pull the almost-shrimping kite on deck. No wonder this boat is almost always way at the back of the fleet with this kind of crew-work.
We now headed for the lee of pier 35 where we doused the main and prepared for landing before motoring into port, wishing we had had more sunshine for more vivid photography, but happy to have watched some exciting racing action on the bay!!!
1 comment:
Very good......
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