Hi guys,
Conditions for the race were as follows: the first leg was a dead downwind leg of about a 7 mile distance. We flew our .75 ounce full size spinnaker. The wind was pretty light, about a 5 knot average. The boat definitely goes downwind best in these conditions when the apparent wind is kept between 90 and 110 degrees. By reaching up it may seem like the extra distance is excessive, but boatsapeed of around six knots can be maintained by sailing high, and it would drop to around two knots if we point right at the mark. We rounded the first mark in the lead by about a boat length ahead of "Bingo", a Perry 24.
The next leg was a 5 mile close reach to Pilot Point. The wind was increasing slightly, to around 10 knots. Hula flew a large genoa. We had moved the staysail roller aft to allow for tacking of the large headsail, even though we only had to tack one time the entire race. We stretched our lead on the second leg. I was pleased to see that we had almost half a mile lead on second place at this point.
The third and final leg was about a 6 mile close hauled (for a Westsail) leg in wind up at 17 max apparent. The genoa was not enjoying it, but I knew a sail change woul kill us, and I don't have much confidence that our smaller jib is a race winner. We hardened up on Port tack after clearing Pilot Point. Two reasons for this, one, the ebb tide would be less near the beach, and I knew we would be unable to lay the finish line on starboard after the tack, ok and three, we had a little bit of our lead I was willing to burn by getting closer to the lay line. I was hoping for a slight right windshift after we flipped over, because we were low of the finish line. We were granted our slight right windshift, and we were able to just barely lay the finish line. The last leg seemed close hauled to us, but to others, like the Transpacific 52's that were able to pass us on the last leg, it probably seemed a small bit reachy.
The Foulweather Bluff race is a unique race in Puget Sound in that it is one of the only races where one can ever hope for any reaching at all. Most of the other races are straight upwind then straight downwind. At any rate, I was pleased nearly beyond belief at how well our Westsail 32 performed!
Ps: I will be racing this Sunday on a Baba 40 (a Bob Perry 40' double ender) named Airloom. The owner is a very good friend of mine and I race on his boat a lot. I will be sure to remind him, at an appropriate moment and on behalf of all you Westsail 32 owners, that HULA beat him in the Foulweather Bluff race on elapsed time by over 20 minutes!!!
Bill Stange