One Girls Ocean Challenge

September 3, 2012
This weekend I had the pleasure of racing with my great friends at Aquafolia on Etoile D’Argent.  Saturday’s racing saw two course races.  The wind was from the north, shifty and variable.  We had to really be on our toes to keep the boat moving fast in the variable conditions.  The first race showed great wind pressure on the right hand side of the course.  We determined our strategy to protect the right, and went for it.  To our surprise, the rest of the fleet went left.  We started to wonder if there was something they knew that we didn’t….maybe a little local knowledge?  We crossed our fingers as we approached the first upwind mark.  Woohoo!  We were in front!  Our strategy held for the rest of the race.  We played the different pressures, driving the boat up and down when the conditions demanded it, doing a nice slalom course down the rhumbline.  By the second race, it looked like there might be an afternoon thermal.  There were some nice puffy clouds developing over Plattsburgh and in the bay.  We decided to stick to the right hand side of the course where the pressure still looked good, but to keep an eye on the left for new pressure coming in and a potential big shift.  Ten seconds to the start we were on the line exactly where we wanted to be, but with a boat below us pushing us over early!  We drove up, made a little hole underneath us and then took a big dive down to clear ourselves before the next boat pushed us over again…..it was an excellent effort, but the stern didn’t quite clear the line.  The start gun went and immediately the individual recall flag was up with a sound signal.  We were over and had to get back to the start line as fast as we could without risking loosing our lead!  We got back down to the line, cleared ourselves and bailed out to the right hand side of the course.  The rest of the fleet must have been watching those puffy clouds also, as they all went left again!  We had clear air and a lane to take us to the right hand side of the course.  What was this?  The compas had us down twenty degrees!!!  Woohoo we also had a nice knock getting us over to the right hand side.  One quick tack and we lifted the rest of the way to the windward mark…..ahead of almost everyone!  It was an awesome race giving us our second win for the day.  Everyone’s arms were aching afterwards from all of the constant trimming and adjusting.  A nice evening swim helped that out.  The next day we set off for our distance race.  The forecast was light, variable and dying to zero wind.  As we neared the halway point in our distance race, we ran out of time for the race to count, so the distance race unfortunatley would not add to the points.  Etoile D’Argent is again this year’s winner of the overall C & D division course racing!  Thanks everyone for an awesome win, an awesome team and an awesome weekend!
Diane