Shields, 7/2/25, Start of the Summer Series

To bib or not to bib?

Was my question as we headed towards the course last night. The seabreeze felt like it was dying, dropping from 15s down to 12s. I was warmer than I had expected to be-- not to bib, I decided with reckless bonhomie; what's a few splashes?

I have come to love the weirdly social pre-sequence. The boats start to gather, and as we sail back and forth, feeling out wind angles and studying the course, I wave and nod and catcall to friends-- some of whom I really only see regularly each week separated by 20 feet of water.

We were placing bets on how many starts it would take to stick one, and were all surprised when the first start was called clean. We started at the boat, and tacked out towards Jamestown shortly. We were indecisive in our right side course decision, though, and both the boats that committed to going right and the boats that committed to going left converged on the top mark ahead of us, our waffly decision making punishing us farther by coming up to our layline on port-- and having to duck about seven boats who were nose to nose on stbd before we could tack over. Rounding the offset into a clean set, we were in the back third. Halfway up the first beat, 156 had already surged ahead of the fleet, a position they successfully held onto the rest of the race.

An easy downwind, and then we decided on a late takedown to try to blow through the bottleneck that was forming at the gates. Will Connelly, trimming spin, called for a left gate, and as we turned up and headed back out towards Jamestown, a huge left shift lifted us until we were pointed, incredulous, right at the windward mark. Along with the shift came a pressure increase. Checking SailFlow after, the jump went from 12kts to almost 20. Gleefully Hawk scurried forward, benefitting immensely from the shift and jumping from the back half of the fleet to 7th for the next windward rounding.

It was a fast and furious downwind. 217 and 249 were just ahead of us, side by side, and after failing to catch up we settled right on top of them, riding their stern wave and looming. Vibes were sassy onboard, amped up by our placement jump. 156, still holding an easy lead, led the pack around the new bottom mark.

And then the last leg, where I thought longingly of my bibs in the drybag right below me. We had made the decision to follow 156 and the other fleet leaders and cut through the spinnaker adored mid fleet back to center channel, but the chop kicked up by wind, made worse in the channel by the outgoing current, was nasty, and it felt like we were being knocked about too much to sail efficiently. I think we lost a few places to boats that tacked towards Jamestown and stayed in flatter water. After a wet, grueling beat, we finished 10th.

Teeth chattering, as we began our wet journey home I reflected that considering at the first mark we were second half the fleet, soaked, yet 10th, wasn't too terrible a start to the summer series.