March 19, 2012

MEXORC Day #6 "Exciting times on the 1d48"

Saturday set up to be a terrific day of sailing on the Gold Cup Course for the racers at the MEXORC with a little more wind than everyone expected and a well set race course with a true upwind, triangle, upwind layout. As mentioned in earlier reports two of the classes had near locks on who was going to place first, the Andrews 70 ALCHEMY in class A and the Farr 40 Flojito y Cooperando in class C, but class B and Class D were still up for grabs.
Class A started with no over earlys with all the boats tacking almost immediately to the right side of the course for a favorable wind shift, Class B followed suit with Blue Blazes and Ruahatu getting a slight edge off the start line. Trigarante started at the committee boat end with a slight delay to guarantee an early tack to tack to the right and get to the wind shift. The regatta is using time on time scoring, so during the race you can check/estimate your time ahead our behind your competitors that are all sailing at different speeds according to their individual rating handicap. At the first buoy, Blue Blazes was first boat  already had about a 12-15 second advantage over Trigarante who rounded second! The Farr 46 Wasabi was up in the hunt in third place with their all Saturday local Mexican crew closely followed by the Concordia 47 Ruahatu.
Blue Blazes was sailing clean and fast to all the buoys with their time on Trigarante getting slightly bigger at each turn. Trigarante was watching Class B victory slowly sail away as Blue Blazes made great tacks, great gybes, great spinnaker sets and douses, the Trigarante team kept their heads in the game knowing something special was needed to catch Blue blazes.
Class A had already rounded the last buoy for a spinnaker run to the finish. Patches was launched and "on the step" leaving the last buoy on a plane while the rest of class A hoisted their spinnaker and tried to catch the speedy Patches. All the other boats on the race course can go to school about what the wind is doing ahead of them by watching the boats ahead when they put up their spinnakers and bear away set of gybe soon, indicating either the wind is constant or changing direction and/or speed. Well, Alchemy showed Trigarante the something special she was going to need to get back some time on Blue Blazes. Watching Alchemy set their spinnaker back in the pack of class A boats and gybe across the top of the course with their spinnaker clearly pulling harder with more wind, showed Trigarante the wind was stronger on the top half of the course and more toward the left side while sailing to the finish mark.
Alchemy nailed it and passed 3 boats to the finish coming in second boat for boat behind Patches! The discussion on Trigarante was clear and simple. Get to the buoy, hoist the spinnaker, set the pole with the spinnaker very open, build speed and gybe to follow a similar path of Alchemy. Blue Blazes had already rounded about three minutes ahead and was almost sailing off to victory, but stayed in line with the class A boats that were sailing the opposite side of the race course than Alchemy and in apparently less wind. Trigarante hoisted the spinnaker, square the pole, picked up speed and gybe, so far so good.
As Trigarante sailed across the top of the course to the left side lay line to gybe for the finish, it was very clear that we were closing in on Blue Blazes who had gybe to follow our path, but three minutes too late and were losing distance gained by sailing closer to Trigarante than the finish to match the same speed of Trigarante. When we made our last gybe of the regatta to turn to the finish I told the Trigarante crew make this a good one, we have a chance of winning the regatta if hold our speed and close in on Blue Blazes who also had gybed for their final approach.
Blue Blazes crossed the finish line first, but owed Trigarante about 2 minutes and 42 seconds, hold your breathe......Trigarante crossed 2 minutes and 32 seconds behind! The Mexican Navy and Trigarante placed 1st in race #8, forcing a tie on points with Blue Races for 7 races scored and wins the tie breaker with 4 first to Blue Blazes 3 first places! I can not tell you how excited the Trigarante crew was! In the wrap up I will tell you more about what the Navy did to get their boats ready for this regatta, it is a terrific story!
In Class C, The Jboats were thriving on this race course with the J-125 Timeshaver leading the pack, closely chased by two J-133's Paladin and Veloce II and the Farr 40 Flojito y Cooperando.
Class D looked a little spread out, with Bandido leading the pack and chased by the Peterson 40 Piet Hein and a gaggle of Capri 37's. The interesting thing about this fleet is the colors of the hulls give away who is where on the race course, no one can hide! Bandido is bright red and there are two very orange boats, Nitisssima and Pershephone, both Reichel Pugh boats that are very easy to see on the race course!
The results were only announce at the super prize giving dinner ceremony, so all I can report on were who was first, second and third in today's race and the series. I will post complete results when they are available.
Class A Race #8
1st TP-52 Patches
2nd Andrews 70 Alchemy
3rd SCR-52 Vincitore
Class B Race #8
1st  1D48 Trigarante
 2nd RP-50 Blue Blazes
3rd  NM46 Insurgente
Class C Race #8
1st  J133 Paladin
2nd J133 Veloce II 
3rd Farr 40 Flojito y Cooperando
Class D Race #8
1st  Peterson 40 Piet Hein
2nd Bandido
3rd  Capri 37 Azteca
*all Photos from STRANGE BIRD PHOTOS
Muchas Gracias por velear con Ullman Sails,
Tomas Span
Ricky Brockmann
Bruce Cooper