Shields Night 3, 6/12/25

2nd night on shield 245.

Finally a race with decent wind and it wasn't freezing. June has been staunchly holding on to the fog and rain but this particular Wednesday the sun broke through, and our sea breeze was full of summer promise.

Full confession time.

My interest in sailing with this fleet is to gain a broader understanding of tactics and the racecourse itself. My background is big boat sailing, usually on overcomplicated classic schooners, and as such (and because I'm never anywhere near the back of the boat) my attention has always been more focused inward. It didn't matter to me if we were protecting the right side of the course-- it mattered whether our gear was on the right side of the fifteen foot bowsprit; whether the foretopsail was setting right; whether the 4,500 square foot kite was getting re-packed right. And, never being at the back of the boat I never had a chance to hear any of the tactical discussion anyway. Before last summer's NYYC Race Week I had never really done windward/leewards. I had sailed with a symmetrical kite once.

The shields are a competitive fleet, and by sailing with one regularly all summer I hope to make back some of the lost experience I've missed out on that is the bread and butter of any kid who grew up club sailing-- anyone who cut their eye teeth in collage sailing. Ignorance is not a crime, nor is it something to be embarrassed over. All I can do is ask questions, and try to make up the experience.

Our start was fantastic. We crossed the line third from the pin end and even with most of the fleet, and then shot out ahead of the line of boats, a cork from a bottle with clean air and a good spot. That was the best part of our race. A tack when we should have ducked on the first beat kept us on the left side of the course, and we lost a few boats to that. There was supposed to be an offset but was not, and we were coming in for a tight rounding on port tack. Myself and the kite trimmer quietly decided we would get the kite up first and free fly it and worry about the pole later, but as we rounded the back of the boat started calling for Pole first so we reverted. Got the kite up, the downwind was unremarkable except we couldn't get the boat into fast mode, and as we approached the gate the kite kept collapsing. Our biggest cluster fuck of the evening was the first leeward mark. The call to set the jib came right as the kite collapsed, and since the kite was all over the forestay the jib couldn't go up. I got distracted trying to clear the kite from the headstay, the back of the boat thought the jib was up and came up, we tried to take the kite down but the pole was still up... it was a massive cluster fuck, excuse the unrefined language. Got it figured out and back into mode.

We won back a few spots throughout the rest of the race, including going all the way right into Potter's Cove on the last beat.

It was hard to start a race so strong, and then slowly loose ground throughout because of a chain of mistakes. As everyone keeps saying-- this is a competitive fleet, and every mistake is high cost.