2 races and an education

Saturday night Axle Wharton hosted his first race from SYC and I think its a great platform for a future series. The Saturday 6pm "Float-a-Keg" race(not sure about the name) is a race pitting the old stellar tako versus the newly updated CAFfeinated ACA33(not really its name but my honors to Caf on the great work). Although no takos actually showed up for the races it was great fun and has much potential to become a great race.

Unlike most other mixed race series in SL these races use no handicap system, instead it uses a class structure, and works like this.

Each boat is its own class, and is only racing boats in its class.

The boat that finishes first in class wins its class, if a boat finishes first of all classes it wins the race over all and still wins its class.

Nothing fancy as its a system endurance races all over the world have used for years.

The races went off greatly with only a few minor glitches made by an extremely nervous first time Race Director. These issues were nothing that a little practice won't fix to make everything perfect.

I have an idea for this race to actually add a third boat class using the Wild Wind RCJ44. I say this because with recent speed improvements on the ACA's part all 3 boats have comparable performance and it would make for great racing.

Now there is one hiccup to all of this, Axle doesn't want to run the races again. Which is a shame, I love the format and think it could be another fabulous addition to the race week, and I love the slot since its one of the few I can attend on SL on a regular basis. So Axle please continue on with this race, if you don't I'll start a petition to make you continue it, if that fails I'll have to just steal the idea and use it myself with any RD willing to do the job. But Axle you can do it, don't get discouraged. The fact that you had 3 races go off smoothly in an hour proves you can do it.


Race 2 and my education

Race 2 is an old horse around the USS area. Its the Sunday 10am races from Starboards Yacht Club. On this day the race was the race around the void course with ACA's. Now anytime I get a notice in my email about an extra ACA race I can attend I will go, no questions, and this being a rare race for me to attend I get to face off against people I normally wouldn't face.

This is where my education comes in, as learn a few things;

Seraina and Heidi are bad fast, I need to sail from SYC more as I can't get a reliable start, and I can not race in channels.

The First round of racing taught me all of these things. I flopped on the start so bad that the line actually called me over early but then decided that I was ok and let me start with a 0.00 time.
After my lucky start I got my next lesson, Seraina, who used her windward rights to hold me down out of a position to make a pass, for 2 whole legs. Which is when we come to I can not race in between islands. In three rounds of racing I held my own till we got to the narrow water ways, then I dropped off like a rock. However as much as I hate seeing boats pull away from me while I sit powerless I'm not all that surprised. I race ocean courses plain and simple, I like open water the options it brings and the tactical advantages that come with them. In narrow water ways there are no options which leaves me hanging everytime. So now I'll wander back to NYC with my tail between my legs and go take out my frustration on anyone who joins me in the open water.