A foggy light breeze greeted the racers at Gilpatrick Cove so the RC chose to head up Somes Sound for the concluding race of the 4th of July Series. As the fleet sailed down through the bowling alley the breeze built pressure to a gorgeous 10-12 knots from the south. A windward mark was set near Acadia Mountain for a 2 mile beat followed by a deep run to a gate off the Somesville Harbor entrance. Auriga worked the shifts and sniffed out better pressure, rounding the top with a sizable lead over Woodie and Gambler. The breeze completely shut down at 150 yds to the gate and the continuously overlapped fleet had a tough decision to make: Should they work right into a vagrant westerly puff? Or, stay left and go slow initially to get back into the seabreeze? It was an interesting struggle and the boats on both edges made out best with the boats in the middle being chewed up in a blender of fickle puffs. The tide was ebbing hard and that assisted the competitors in exiting the Sound to a finish at Mark P.
Congratulations to Steve Madeira and his crew on Auriga who won the first series of 2011.
NE Harbor Fleet
4th of July 2011
July 2-4, 2011
Pl S# 1 2 3 T
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1 2 Steve Madeira 2 2 1 5
2 XC Jason Ingle 1 4 2 7
3 21 John Henry 6 1 5 12
4 22 JT Roberts 7 3 3 13
5 25 Nicholas Schoeder 5 7 4 16
6 8 David Schoeder 4 6 8 18
7 18 Solomon Krevans 8 5 6 19
8 7 Fred Ford 3 8 10 21
9 14 Sydney Rockefeller 9 9 7 25
10 15 Charlie Wray 11\DNS 11\DNS 9 31
AFTER RACE 2
A seabreeze had a difficult time getting established in the Great Harbor today. The RC, following Admiral Madeira's suggestion, moved out into the breeze a bit. A twice around course to M got slightly modified and shortened with a left shift and the breeze getting soft at the top of the beat. The Dram team scored huge on the run working current relief and a bit more pressure on the Cranberry shore. A short second race was held with the Gambler working the crowd up along Manset with Auriga nipping at them all the way.
