CHARIAD – July 4th & Big Comeback in Patton Bowl

Dear Friend of CHARIAD:

July 4th BBQ & Fireworks

July 4^th is a special time in Marblehead. That is a race day for CHARIAD, and wonderful fireworks light the sky at night celebrating American independence.

I don’t know the weather for the 4^th, but we are planning to host a BBQ on CHARIAD the evening of the 4^th to watch the fireworks. Let me know if you can come on board.

Remarkable Come From Behind Finish

CHARIAD had a remarkable come from behind finish at the Patton Bowl Regatta hosted by the Manchester YC this past Sunday. The regatta honors WWII Gen. Patton who was a member of the MYC.

This is a crude chart of the race. We started at Gale’s Ledge off Manchester and had a windward leg to Newcomb’s Ledge outside Bakers Island.

If the race had ended at Newcomb’s, we would have won. CHARIAD likes upwind in moderate winds. We were not remarkably faster than the other boats, but we sailed better against the wind shifts and where the wind was.

The next two legs were long close reaches to Gloucester and back to Gales. We were terrible. Partly because the four boats we were racing are have large asymmetrical spinnakers and are much better at reaching legs and we probably could have sailed the legs more aggressively. We carried the spin for part of the leg to Gloucester and kept it up too long. Returning to Gale’s, we waited too long before trying to put the spin up again. By the time we approached Gale’s again, we were at least a mile behind the next Class B boat in front of us. Sad story.

Unfortunately for the other boats in our class, they had to do two more legs of the course. Back to Newcomb’s and then back to Gale’s. These were windward/leeward legs in moderate wind – 8 or 9 knots.

We squeaked in front of the boat that had been a mile in front at the windward mark. By staying inside the downwind lay lines, we passed two more boats just before the finish line and another boat crossed just in front of us, but we corrected over them. Sometimes the wind just goes away and boats in the back can catch up to the boats in front. That was not the story Sunday. The CHARIAD team just sailed well and smart for the three W/L legs. We clearly need to do better on the close reach legs.

We ended up finishing 2^nd in Class B to Hafa Adai, a J 109, who beat us by 1:42 minutes. We were very pleased with our come from behind “victory.”

There is a lot of irony in life. Hafa Adai got a glass trophy and a bottle of rum for finishing in 1^st place. Finishing in 2^nd place got us a very useful canvas bag. And two of our crew members walked off with bottles of rum when the bar was closing down. The volunteer bar tender was giving away a couple of extra bottles that the Mt. Gay had given the club as a sponsor.

Let me know if you can join us for the 4^th.

My best,

Rick