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And that run was a most exciting battle. Knowing very well that whoever rounded first or inside at the next mark would win the race, both Anders and Al gybed to port. With only a boatlength of water between Anders' transom and Al's bow, Al was well placed to take Anders' wind but of course every time Al went up, Anders did likewise. After a few attempts Al and Anders P. decided they would have to try to "outspeed" Anders F. and Sune. And Al and Anders sailed Whistle beautifully to max speed for the wind while they pulled further and further ahead of the other 34 boats. But they couldn't gain a centimetre on Anders and Sune who were likewise sailing Wassail perfectly. Having gone about 200 m. high of the leeward mark on port tack, the boats would have to gybe to starboard. So, Al's next plan was to gybe later than Anders and try to get the inside overlap that way but Anders wasn't buying and waited for Al to make the first move. Finally, it became apparent that if we waited much longer we would be reaching into the mark on starboard and have no hope of catching Anders. So we decided to gybe. As soon as Anders P. handed me the spi sheets, Anders F. threw his boom over. Thinking fast, Uncle Al delayed his gybe until he was right on Anders Friis' wind. (After the race, Anders Friis was disappointed to learn that Al's manoeuvre was not intended to "fake out" Anders but aboard Whistle, we were proud of our fast thinking just the same.) In any case, we took enough of Anders' wind to catch him, but now faced a problem: we could easily take Anders wind and pull even with him by going to windward, but that would be useless because it would leave us on the outside at the mark. So we pointed our bow just to leeward of Anders' transom and hoped we would take enough of Anders' wind to get the overlap. What an exciting couple of minutes! About three lengths from the mark, Anders looked back and announced that Whistle had no overlap. Al was not sure and so took Anders' word for it. As we luffed up and cleared Anders' rudder by a centimetre or two, Al suddenly remembered the spinnaker which would be a good half a metre out in front of the bow that both Al and Anders had been staring at (see illustration below) ... ..  .. Whistle had gained an inside overlap and I'm sure Anders would have given us room if Al had pointed out the overlapping spinnaker. (Oddly enough, less than two weeks later, Uncle Al was telling his crew, Marc Bennett, about this exciting race and how for the first time in nearly 50 years of racing, he had been stuck trying to blanket Anders and still go for the inside overlap. Marc had the solution from his 470 days in Jamaica. It was simple once you heard it but of course, if it took me another 50 years to see that situation a second time, the solution wouldn't me much good. Imagine my surprise when, the very next morning, we hit a similar situation in our North American championship! I tried Marc's suggestion and it worked perfectly!! Can you guess what his suggestion was? The answer is about halfway down the page at http://www.angelfire.com/on4/nac2002/02NACrace2.html .. |
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