Shields, 6/25/25, on 245

And June 25th turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL night on the water, despite being preceded by a nearly 100 degree day with no wind, and an abrupt easterly that came in with rain. After an AP for "unsettled weather" the race committee set up a course that was east/west between Jamestown and the Newport harbor entrance. A few dozen shields trolled back and forth along the line off Jamestown for over an hour as we were APed again, and had two general recalls. Luckily it was a beautiful night, adorned with rainbows, disquiet wind shifts and violent current eddies to study while we waited.

On 245 vibes were high and silly and crew work felt sloppy, as we worked out numerous errors in set up. We were sailing with 4, and one of us was new to the boat. We also kept missing radio announcements on starts, racecourse-- everything, until we realized before the third start that we were on the wrong channel. It was feeling like a silly evening.

On the third start we won the boat, and tacked out early onto the right side of the course along with five other boats. We were feeling fast and pointing high, capitalizing on dumping backstay pressure in the lulls. We had spotted the orange windward mark in the Newport harbor channel and were making out well for it, in front of the majority of the fleet who had gone left towards Rose Island.

Approaching the windward mark we were barely underlaying it on stbd and sitting on two other boats, so we waited until the last moment for our two quick tacks, to force them to carry on as long as possible. We tacked onto port finally, and I hopped up and started getting the pole ready, anticipating a quick tack back onto stbd and immediate rounding, watching the one boat ahead of us round the anticipated orange. We started to tack onto stbd to round the orange-- and 107, who was under us and confusingly not tacking, started shouting at us. Chaos ensued, as we realized the government can a few boat lengths further on was actually, confusingly, our mark. Through the chaos we did manage to round it and get the kite set, but our kerfuffle had set us back a few boats. In the chaos my kite guy also got wrapped around the pole, and I had a dance around the front of the boat getting it reset.

As we settled into the downwind, we picked out the leeward mark hiding against a tug and barge that was steaming blithely across the bay. Our radio now on the right channel, we did hear the announcement that there would be no gate, just a rounding. As we neared and then were about to shoot past the mark, my mistake was in not being louder about where it was and that we were coming up to it. We were essentially abreast of it by the time the back of the boat and the boat inside of us realized, and frantically, cursing, we managed to shoot the jib up, snatch the kite down, and essentially reach around the back of the mark while watching the complete pileup of boats who had known exactly where the mark was come to a crawl on top of each other. We reached around the back and shot out from behind everyone like an astroid shooting back into orbit, settling back out to our happy stbd side of the course. Somehow, after two confused mark roundings, it was looking like we were still in the top half dozen.

Another beat, still feeling high and fast. We got into a bit of a tacking battle with the Toppas on 156 off of Fort Adams. Tack-- we're ahead. Tack-- they're ahead! Tack! We managed to finish ahead of them, in sixth I believe, our best place of the year so far. We shook our heads in baffled hilarity and started back to the mooring.

A fun night; a silly night; a fast night. Race channel is 78 as it turns out, and I'm learning to be more vocal on the boat as I settle into being more comfortable, both on the boat and on the course. Confused roundings and colorful rainbows-- a great night on the water!