We had a great race down the bay this year. Winds were from the north at the start in the mid teens, making for a nice spinnaker run down the bay. We chose to go left at the start with a port pole to head towards the rhumb line and out into the current. There were some anchored ships out there so we ended up extending a bit further than we wanted to stay out of the wind shadow. It all worked out and we extended out on the fleet and held 5th at that time. We were chasing Cookie, RumRation, Scrimshaw, and Acetea. The fleet was close behind and we knew that we needed to stay west, out of the foul current around the Choptank. Fortunately, most of the fleet stayed on the rhumb and got set by the current. It was not until the targets that we finally passed RumRation and got within correcting distance of Scrimshaw. In the light air we did a 'crazy ivan', heating our course up to the extreme for a while and then jibing back...we came out great with that one. The chute finally came down at Point Lookout and the 2nd part of the race started..upwind. We carried the #1 past the junction buoy to the shore, then bumped the shore on each tack up the river. At the finish, we almost ran aground in an all out effort to keep up with Scrimshaw...who was very fast upwind as well! We're pleased with our 3rd place finish this year!
Resuts: http://www.smcm.edu/govcup/raceinfo10/results.html
and our track: http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/AkoniGovCup2010.htm
