Sailing the Voodoo
Tom Martin, John Holmes, and I set out for Lake Norman on May 17-18 to race the Voodoo Regatta, the second leg of the Southeastern District Traveling Series. I have dabbled in SELD racing for a few years, mostly hanging out in the back of the fleets. This year, John and Tom agreed to make a serious go of it with me and committed to four regattas. We scheduled a few practice sessions at CYC to work out some kinks and refine our team work. We broke down the new class video and worked through spinnaker sets, douses, and gybes. Going to Norman we felt more confidence than ever, but still, this is SELD. The competition is very tough and features Lightning racing at it's best. We set a goal to move to the top 50% of the fleet.
The weather was iffy - overcast, cool, and drizzly. But there was great wind: 10-15 knots. We set-up, launched and headed for the race course.
In race 1, we had an average start and found ourselves in familiar ground at the first mark - the back of the pack. As we rounded the mark, we executed a perfect spinnaker set. That alone sent us past a couple boats who were slow to hoist. With clear air at our back, we noticed our downwind speed was excellent and we picked off a couple more boats to round the lee mark in fifth - a position we held to the finish line.
We had a better start in race 2 and worked our way to the first mark in fifth. Another great chute set and we were off to the races. We couldn't believe the downwind sped our new chute was generating. We felt faster than any boat our there. We gybed at will and rounded the lee mark in third. The top three boats had pulled away from the fleet and we held our position easily the second time around. On the final chute douse, I mis-communicated with John and the chute went under the nose of the boat. We kept our calm. I pulled the board up a little and luckily the chute came out the back! We hauled it in and held on to our third place finish - a SELD best for us.
We tried new starting tactics in race 3 and 4 and it didn't pay off as we finished 7 and 8. But, even at 7 and 8, we were in the thick of things. We sailed in feeling pretty good about the day. When the results came out, we were in fifth place!
Sunday brought identical conditions to Saturday so we went out to see what we could do. We went back to port starts and it paid off. We posted a 4 and hopes of climbing a notch or two ran high. Sure enough, we nailed another start and rounded the windward mark in the thick of things. The chute felt like rocket fuel and we screamed up to third by the leeward mark. As we rounded the mark, disaster struck. The outhaul shackle broke loose and the mainsail was flogging. Tom slid down and worked on it. He did a yeoman's job and in ten minutes we were back in action. But the damage was done. We had sailed way off the course. We fought back hard, and avoided the cellar, but a 9 was all we could do. It would be our throwout.
John Holmes scouts the competition on a downwind leg at
Lake Norman.
When the scores were in, we had defended fifth place by one point. It was out personal best at a SELD regatta. The exhilaration of competing with the best was addictive and we look forward to Wilmington.
Ron Wright