Scott Free

Wow, 27 boats? Too bad the breeze didn’t stick around for a little bit longer. But it was great to see such a large fleet, most of the Fleet 50 regulars as well as a few special guests in town for the Coastal Living Newport Regatta. Getting over 25 boats out for a Thursday night means you can be 12th and still consider yourself in the top half. And if you do better, man are there a lot of sails following you across the line.

We thought we had the first race nailed. We started near the pin and headed left, hoping that when we came back on port tack, the lift generated by the outgoing current in the channel would carry us into the lead. A few others had the same idea and we all ended up staring at a lot of transoms as we tried to get around the windward mark.

The second race seemed to go better. We followed Scott Milnes on the low road on the run and snuck into the top 10, but then heard the heart-breaking sound of silence as we crossed the finish line. No gun, we were OCS.

Ugh.

Scott Ferguson made a rare appearance in Fleet 50 and promptly blitzed the fleet in Race 1. If it makes you feel any better, he did about the same thing to the Laser fleet in the Sail Newport Regatta. Doesn’t help? Sorry, that’s all I can offer. Until Thursday that is.

A rather unusual wind condition for last Thursday night’s race. A dying westerly breeze and a strong outgoing tide. What were your initial thoughts on the wind/tide conditions and what did you anticipate might happen during the race? How did you go about setting up your boat for those conditions?

Very loose set-up, lowers were almost slack, headstay was off the Loos scale by over an inch. Initial thoughts were to stay away from the rip around the house on the rock ..... look for some relief from the Rose Island cone. Try not to run into anybody.

There was a strong difference of opinion on how to handle the first beat of the first race. A number of boats went hard left, hoping to come back on port tack in max current. Others, like yourself, played the right side. The right side was the big winner. Can you explain a little bit how you came to this decision and also what you feel was the difference in that first beat.

The initial thoughts of heading for the cone of Rose Island were reinforced by visual appearance of more pressure to the right .... so this strong feeling lead to a good boat start. We sailed for a short time on starboard before tacking. Very tempting to keep going left, but the team (Jessie Fielding, Lyle Fielding, Ben Quatromoni, and Willem Van Waay) decided to stick with the plan. We went almost to layline .... rest was history.

Light air, current, never a lot of fun for a J/24 downwind. What do you think were the keys to that run?

Had to get onto port right away as the current was sweeping left to right .... then we just watched the mark against the land and actually had to sail a little hotter than vmg the whole way across.