Saturday's final race. Unsure whether John placed 2nd or 3rd in race 3, Marc and I are assuming he took 2nd, and now has a 1-2-3 while we have a 1-1-2. After 4 races are in the books, there is a drop. And who knows what, if anything, tomorrow may bring, so the SHADES race strategy remains unchanged. If John wins and this turns out to be the final race of the series, we will both be counting 1-1-2, and if there's a tie breaker, John will win it by virtue of having beaten us in the last race. So, we have to sail to beat John.

With almost the entire fleet on port, we see Al (3854) for the first time. He has, for the moment, succeeded in his attempt to find clear air, but now must weigh this and the port lift against the fact that John (not in this pic) has held starboard and is getting away, something we really can't afford to risk. This being Lac Deschênes, John could come out of the left corner with an insurmountable lead. So ...    - for full-size pic, click here

... we tack. Only to find that Tony (4105) and Frank (648) have also tacked. I suppose a case could made for saying that we are seeing how the other half lives. I seem to recall that John had tacked to port by this time and it was becoming clear that the left side was not paying off for the moment. A shift is about to hit Al (3854) and Bill (937) who are converging on opposite tacks. Oddly enough, both Al and Bill ...  - for full-size pic, click here

A minute or two later: Tony (2nd from left) holds starboard in spite of a substantial knock which is correspondingly lifting all the port boats here. Bill (937) and Al (3854) are in fact, pretty close to the port lay line and not all that far from the mark. Thus this is no time for Al to tack to escape Bill's disturbed air. Instead ...

This picture illustrates what I mean when I tell people that a bridle-mounted mainsheet block lets us judge small mainsheet adjustments far better than a block on a traveller at deck level. Here, we are one to two inches from being block to block, which is usually about right for our pinching mode when the wind strength is such that we both need to sit on the deck but do not need to hike out.

The big port lift has killed all the boats that went way right on the beat, and benefitted Bill (937) and Al (3854) who happened to be left of centre at the right time. After his last windward-mark experience, Bill and Deirdre take no chances here. To ensure that they will most definitely lay the mark, they ...