April 15th "Training Day"

April 15th saw the first of this seasons Santana 22 Fleet training races. The day began very early (up just before 6 am) for me as I wanted to bring Dayspring up from Coyote Point to get a gauge on how far I still have to go before it is reasonably competitive. The answer is a straight forward, "A ways", as in a ways to go. That said, the day was a blast of intense super quick races. I learned a bunch and had a great time.

The racing convened at Clipper Cove at approximately 11 am. Frank Lawlers 'Tackful" served as the racing committee and set the course marks (Frank and company were the bomb, you guys did a great job!). We began under grey skies with light winds. I think the first race went off with 3 boats total, but we added a boat or two with each consecutive race until we had 6 or so boats with winds around 12 kts. The earlier races were a hunt for the best pressure. Adam, who crewed for me, and I spent the first two races discovering that the left side of the course was a giant wind suck while we watched the fleet move off and away. We did figure it out though and started finishing at the back of the pack instead of off the back.

After we broke for a lunch break and a hashing out of various observations (Dayspring was noted as the "most improved" boat and MAD MAX was noted as the most aggressive ( I recall MM as being at the center of some start line mayhem, fun to see 22 footers scatter like dinghys ). I was trying to improve our starts to try to make up for our lack of boat speed by hitting the line at full power. This resulted in my crossing the line twice early and violating Pip's right of way ( turns out we were over early then too). I came away thinking I need to spend more time reviewing the rules when it comes to starting line rights.

Mayhem was also caused when a large trawler happened through the field at about 30 seconds to the start of one of the after lunch races.

After the last race was run, the matter of how to return Adam to dry land became the immediate concern. We opted to drop the jib and head into the dock under main alone ( I had the motor running just in case). He pushed my nose back out and I raised the jib taking care of the shallow water nar the clipper cove entry. Once under the Bay bridge it was one long starboard take home. The wind angle varied a bit, creeping forward toward the bow and then coming back onto the beam as the winds came around Mount San Bruno. The fetch built to a modest 4 feet hitting also on the starboard beam which kinda sucked. I came a round a parked ship and looked out at 8 miles of four foot fetch and thought it would be a long bronco of a ride. Fortunately, I was averaging 7+ knots by then, so it went by quickly enough. Certainly way better than 2 and 1/2 hours of motoring.