Beer Can #12 - June 25

I was in this week's beer can race and did sail on a Merit, but my purpose was two-fold. Besides enjoying the race and trying to win, I was practicing for the LGYC Challenge race I'll be in this Saturday. You can get more info about our first practice and the race results on my other sailing blog.

My crew was Kerry (who actually chartered the boat, but I was acting skipper), Norbert (who faithfully came to the race straight from work and had to go back to work right after the race), Phill (who is the most experienced racer among us and has been a tremendous inspiration to us all). If you read my other blog about our first practice, you know that we were lacking some weight in general, but we had too much weight on the low side with Kerry grinding on the tacks. We still didn't have a fifth crew member.

I ran into Florin on the docks just before the start of the race and thought he'd be perfect... young, athletic, agile, strong, and light weight... not too much weight on the low side when he was grinding for me but enough to help on the high side when we were all on the rail. I asked him if he could do it, and he was thrilled. He said he'd have to check with his wife, and I offered him my cell phone. He made the call and 5 minutes later we had our fifth crew member! Yippee!

These guys are the best crew I could ask for, and I look forward to racing with them in the LGYC Challenge on Saturday.

Since I'm skippering the race on Saturday, I had to pay attention to my crew and strategy, so I asked my good friend and sailing buddy, Sandi, to take pictures of the Merit racing crews for me. She got all of the crews except for M1, because they took off before she even got to the dock! Thanks, Sandi!

I spent the time after the race debriefing and strategizing with my crew, so I didn't get any of the good stories I usually get. And I don't want to discuss my racing strategy before the big race on Saturday. But I can tell you that one of my opponents in Saturday's race, John Draeger, raced a Merit that night and won. My other opponent in Saturday's race, Jeff Smith, raced his own boat, Ilonsa, that night, so I couldn't observe his tactics in a Merit. Well, we were watching John anyway, because I'd observed Jeff on a couple of other races and thought I could predict some things he might do. (I'm not tellin'...)

We were in M3, and John was in M5. Nico, who wins a lot of races, particularly in M2, was in M2. Those three boats started pretty much together, along with M7, skippered by Kimi with my friends Sandi and Bruce as crew.

We practiced in the positions we'd concluded were best at the end of Sunday's practice. Phill took the helm and the main. I managed the jib sheets (released and tailed). Florin stayed down low to grind for me and then hopped up on the rail between tacks. Norbert was the forward-most rail meat and Kerry was rail meat in the middle. Can you believe two accomplished sailors like that were willing to come out and just be rail meat for me? What fantastic friends they are! So Norbert spent the entire race crossing in front of the mast on tacks, while Kerry rolled under the boom. I'm telling you... I couldn't ask for better sailing buddies. I owe those guys big time!

The practice went really well in terms of our positions. The crew was in synch and doing everything we were supposed to be doing. On the downwind leg, Phill taught us how to rock the boat down on puffs and waves, keeping it as flat as possible. But M5 and M2 were gaining speed and increasing their leads throughout the race. In fact, John went flying out in front of everyone on the downwind leg like a speed demon!

Phill isn't used to being passed by other Merits after a good start. He's used to gaining speed and then catching the other boats and winning races. So he started questioning himself, thinking maybe we're actually better than the people he usually sails with! We also thought John might be a real threat, and we knew Jeff had won this race a couple of other times. So we had our work cut out for us.

Here are the results:

Place	Boat	Skipper
1	M5	John Draeger
2	M2	Nico
3	M3	Cheryl
4	M1	Steve Skinner
5	M4	Peter
6	M7	Kimi

After the race, we cornered Stan and asked him if we could tune the rigs and how certain things would work on Saturday. We decided that I should pick up some tell-tales and some rigging tape and bring that on Saturday, along with some pliers and other tools to work on the boats before the skipper's meeting.

Wish me luck on Saturday in the LGYC Challenge! See you out there next Wednesday!