We drifted around for about two hours waiting for the winds to fill, and settle. We finally got a start off in 5-10 knots of breeze, but the race was cancelled about half way through allegedly because of a large wind shift and diminishing winds. Ron and I were disappointed because we estimated that we were in the high 30s when the race was cancelled.
We had two races. Fairly windy with 12-18 knots of breeze, but the big factor was the rolling waves. Ron and I are about 440 lbs together, and probably one of the lighter teams out there. (one of the teams was 600+ lbs. TWO PEOPLE!!!!) We were quickly overpowered, and our inexperience in the star showed as we had a tough time driving upwind through the heavy seas in the breeze.
However, we had a blast. We held our own downwind, and surfed past many of our competitors, only to be passed again on the upwind legs. We had some great surfs on the waves, and plowed the bow through some waves, filling the boat with water, but the bow popped right out, and the autobailers in the bottom sucked the water right out as we quickly got back on another wave and rode it to the next mark. Great Fun!!!!
After two races, New Jersey's John MacCausland was winning the regatta followed by Bermuda's Peter Bromby and Maine's Culyer Morris. We had a 51 and a 54.
So, after the boats were disqualified for rounding the mark the wrong way, we moved up to a 64 finish, which we hoped would be our throwout.
After three races, Bromby had moved into first, with McCausland second, followed by Eric Doyle who won races 2 & 3.
We scored 46 on thursday. We were in the 50s for a while, but found the shorter distance to the leeward marks than a lot of boats in the fog who almost went right past it. We just couldn't see the marks until we were right on top of them.... I'll take a little luck.
Alex Hagen from Germany won Race 5 with Doyle second. After five races, with one race to go, and counting only the best four, Eric Doyle had a commanding lead with 5 points, with Peter Bromby in second with 17, Alex Hagen in third with 18 points and MacCausland in fourth with 20. The only way Bromby could catch Doyle is if Bromby had a first or a second in the last race and Doyle had worse than a 13. Hagen could only catch Doyle if he won the last race, and Doyle finished worse than 14.
Although there was the slim mathematical possibility that someone else could win the regatta, Doyle basically had the world championship in his hand.... All he had to do was to stay out of trouble and have a pretty good race (13th or better); with the way he'd been sailing, that shouldn't have been a problem. Or if he had a bad race, hope neither Hagen nor Bromby won, and Bromby didn't place second.
Last day of the regatta.
This race was one of the most interesting, and most bizarre races I have ever been in -- for a couple of reasons.
Conditions were similar to sunday's cancelled race. The committee tried to get races started, but the wind either died or shifted, and they abandoned several starts. Being the World Championships, and the ultra-aggressive star class, there were a lot of boats over the starting line early as well, so the committee had several general recalls, and even put up the dreaded black flag, which means if you're over the line within a minute of the starting gun going off, and the committee can identify you, you're disqualified from that race.
After a series of additional general recalls, 15 boats were black flagged, disqualified, and sent home, but we weren't one of them. However regatta leader Eric Doyle was. Which meant that he couldn't race the final race, and his fate was in the hands of Bromby's, and Hagen's finish.
We finally had a clean start, and Ron and I went left up the race course. Local marblehead lore says in a southeast breeze, go left. Looked like the wind was filling on the left side of the course. The conditions & weather reports were similar to sundays cancelled race, when the left side payed bigtime. So we went left with 2nd place Bromby, and locals Jack Slattery, and John Safford. Most of the fleet played the middle, and some played the right side.
About halfway up the leg, there was a 40 degree windshift which heavily favored all the boats on the right. When we looked over after the shift, the dots on the horizon about to round the mark were the boats than went right. we were screwed!!!!! We decided to stay out on the left side of the course hoping that the wind would shift back, and we would recover some of our losses, but it never did. We were hoping that the Race Committee would abandon this race as they had sunday's race for allegedly the same reason, but they continued not wanting to extend the regatta through the weekend.
Bromby, who was having a pretty consistent regatta, noticed his poor position in the race, decided that the final race would be his throwout, and went home. There were some other boats with us that rounded the windward mark right in front of us. there was only one boat behind us.... After we rounded the leeward mark, the boat that was behind us went home, so at that point we were in dead last (of the boats still left). We ended up passing one boat before we finished the race. definitely not what we had hoped our last race would be like. After the boats DSQ'd by the black flag, and the others went home, we ended up with a 47....
Cuyler Morris won the race with Alex Hagen second. Hagen had tied Doyle with 20 points, but Doyle would win the tiebreaker.
Hagen, and Bromby in turn protested Doyle for unsportsmanlike conduct alleging that Doyle should not have been on the racecourse after being black flagged and that Doyle had tried to slow them down, and affect their finishes in the final race.
Eastern Yacht Club began the banquet by serving cocktails at 6:00, and food at 8:30. At about 10:00, Alex Hagen emerged from the protest room as the winner of the protest, and eventual winner of the regatta as Doyle was disqualified from the final race, and was not allowed to use it as his throwout.
The German teams erupted on the deck of the Eastern Yacht Club in celebration of their contrymen's victory of the Star World Championships. Of course, Hagen, and his crew Ferreira went for an involuntary swim in Marblehead harbor after collecting, and sampling beverages from their large, impressive trophies.
Hagen/Ferreira won the regatta with former US Olympian Mark Reynolds with Magnus Liljedal in second, and Peter Bromby and Michael Marcel in third. Oh yeah, we finished 60th....