Another Great Racing Weekend at the 2004 Blackbeard Regatta

Another great weekend of racing. In the creek, they had 41 boats in the one design fleets, while on the river there were 3 boats in the spinnaker division and four in the non-spinnaker. Once again, Joannie Floyd did a great job as RC, running a superb race. The bad news is that because of historically low support from the PHRF fleet for this race, it will probably be the last year that the Blackbeard Regatta will run a PHRF race, limiting it to one design racing only. With that being said if a couple more of you will pony up and buy a First 367, we could have big boat one design racing on the Neuse River!

Once again the weather gods smiled upon the racing fleet. The day started out overcast and rainy, but cleared up for the racing with 10-15 knots of wind out of the NE. The Spin boats ran a windward/leeward course while the jib and main fleet raced a triangle. The race started off with a minimum of shouting, and was going well for all, but BEG seemed to have better speed than Blue Bayou. Thinking that it was probably a dirty bottom, Blue Bayou tried to wash the bottom of their boat with the spinnaker. Great for the bottom but not so good for the spinnaker, giving BEG an easy win. In the second race, Blue Bayou had to make a choice of the REALLY BIG spinnaker or the chicken chute, as we were all short handed for the weekend, they went for the small spinnaker allowing BEG to walk away from them to what we thought was another overwhelming victory. As we cruised across the “finish line” with the spinnaker drawing, we waited for the horn . . . and waited, until it became clear to us that just like Joni had told us, she had changed the course, adding another lap. In our haste to get the spinnaker down, everything got tangled, so we beat to windward with the main only to unwind our error, then finally got the jib up, rounded the pin end and started the pursuit after Blue Bayou sailed right by us. We did not have enough gas to catch up, and Blue took line honors on race 2.

Sunday started out with sunny skies, low humidity and the wind out of the NE at 12-15 knots. The RC threw in a reaching leg to try to change things up a bit. BEG led at the first mark by a comfortable margin, arriving with the jib and main fleet at the windward mark. The wind had picked up to the 15-20 knot range, and we were able to sail dead downwind to the leeward mark, to round it and take off on the reaching leg at 8-9 knots. The wind steadily increased on the reaching leg, till it was gusting in the mid 20’s, necessitating a change down to the #3 sail. We changed down, rounded the mark and headed for the windward mark again, thankful we had changed sails. Our lead was comfortable enough at the windward mark, that I did not risk tearing my only spinnaker as it is a fairly light chute, so we ran wing and wing with a poled out jib to the finish, and winning first in the series.

The RC was thinking about a second race on Sunday, but I whined so much about wanting to get some work done on the boat and not tear up my only spinnaker, which would preclude me from racing the following weekend in the Oriental Cup, we all headed in for some work at the dock. Another great day of racing on the Neuse River!

Oriental Dingy Club

Pamlico Sailing Club

Blackbeard Sailing Club