Lucy Gets Two More Bullets, Bad News Shakes Cobwebs and Salvages a Win in Last Race

A strong seven boat fleet arrived in the vicinity of the Special Mark 3 at the appointed time only to find a fluky west wind and no Race Committee. The unsettled breeze was reason enough to delay for awhile, but it soon became apparent that we would need to run today’s races ourselves. Fortunately, Mark Sertl stepped up and ran the races by whistle from Lucy’s cockpit, with greater efficiency than many official committees have in the past. The one snag came in the form of some confusion over the finish procedure which was meant to rely on an understanding of some dinghy/college/team race jargon not found in the rule book. But in all, the crew on Lucy saved the day, and was rewarded with two wins.

The westerly breeze forced the fleet to start between the Rose Island nun and a conveniently located lobster pot, 50 yards to its southwest. The course was set as Special Mark 3 to port, finish. The tide was in the last few minutes of flood, the power boat chop moderate to severe! The start saw everyone on or near the line, with a slight crowd at the unforgiving steel nun. The windward leg was demanding in that the velocity and direction of the westerly breeze coming from Jamestown is notoriously fickle, requiring frequent “gear changes” and quick opportunistic tacks for any new puff. As has been the case more often than not this season, Lucy, with Cory Sertl driving, took control of the fleet by mid channel and was never headed. By the run back to Rose Island, Lucy, Conundrum, and Bad News formed a lead group, and USA 1575, Machbuster, Chaos, and Good News formed a second group. The parade to the finish was prettier than it was competitive and the race ended in that order.

Race #2 was the same course, twice around, in essentially the same conditions at the start. For this race Cory ceded Lucy’s helm to husband Mark, who wasted no time demonstrating his lake sailing skills as he immediately went to the front after rolling Machbuster immediately upon whistling the start. By the start of the second lap the outcome wasn’t in doubt, and the race was now for second. Matt Dunbar’s USA 1575 was sailing light and fast and was in good position when the wind finally filled in nicely from the southwest in the middle of the final run, turning it into an increasingly tight spinnaker reach. Bad News had to settle for another unaccustomed third, then came Conundrum, Chaos, Machbuster, and a distant Good News that suffered some sort of trouble, and didn’t start the third race.

The race #3 course was changed to Zp, finish, with a new lobster pot southeast of the nun as the pin. The tide was now ebbing strongly, and the breeze was 12 knots with some puffs. Bad News and Machbuster started near the lobster pot pin and appeared to benefit from better current on the left, but had to tack back soon to pass the gong south of Rose. Lucy, now driven by fourteen year old Nick Sertl(older sister Katja must have drawn the short straw), started in the middle and had to fight some traffic. Bad News loosely covered Machbuster, while controlling the rest of the fleet on the way to Z. At the windward mark, Bad News led by five or six lengths over Machbuster, who was followed in turn by USA 1575 and Lucy, nose to tail. The Bad News crew, Mike Marshall, Matt and Emily Gowell, and Tory Allen, having missed the last three weeks, put it all together, holding off the speedy young Sertl , whose Lucy had managed to pass USA 1575 and Machbuster on the run back to the nun to take second, giving his coach on Bad News a little warning of things to come. Conundrum beat Chaos.

With throwouts now coming into play, the dominant Lucy, sailing today with the same nuclear family crew that finished twelfth in the J/22 Worlds two years ago, leads the season standings by eight points over Matt Dunbar’s consistent USA 1575. Conundrum is third, eleven back, Machbuster is fourth, fifteen back, Bad News is fifth, sixteen back, despite sailing less than half the races.