Spring Dinghy Regatta (LIYC) April 2^nd, 2000

Beautiful sailing conditions with winds right around 10knots, predominantly from the South. Kurt & Anne Wiese consistently won the start and the first (very short) windward leg but they were always dogged by one or two boats on the ensuing reaches to Q and X marks. In the first race, John Papadopoulos and Jamie DeWolfe (Jr.) caught Kurt & Anne just before the leeward X mark and hung on to 1^st all the way back to LIYC. In the second race, Kurt & Anne led until about ½ home on the last leg (again, X to LIYC) but John & Jamie Jr., bow forward and to leeward, were able to out point Kurt and eventually were able to squeeze by before getting to the tip of Lido Island (where all hope is lost because it’s a reach from there to the finish.)

The last race started out similarly with Kurt in the lead and John close behind. Kurt, needing to put two or more boats between himself and John to win, chose to slow down John down to let others get in between him and John. His first tactic was to flog his jib (while reaching from U to Q) to slow John down (who was slightly to leeward and about three boats back) in the hopes that the trailing Lidos would overtake John. Sure enough, it slowed John down enough to let the others catch up. But the tactic only let in a single CFJ (which was racing amongst the Lidos). John’s responding tactic was to convince the CFJ to keep out of the Lido battle. That worked too! In the end, Kurt did extend on the fleet and John was left with the fleet at his back door. Ouch.

But wait! Kurt, having sailed higher than to fleet in order to control it, sailed into the lee of Harbor Island. Ooops. The fleet closed in on Kurt. In hindsight, the whole fleet control tactic backfired because the fleet was now much more condensed upon Kurt and John and it was about 2/3’s reaching to the finish. Ooops again! To keep his lead and clean air, Kurt had to sail high of the leeward mark, dragging everyone but Jaime DeWolfe (Sr.) & Steven DeWolfe along with. Jamie Sr. & Steven were smart enough to break away and take the low road to X, getting a sizable lead on the fleet. John, in the mean time, only needed to control the number of boats between Kurt and himself.

With superior downwind speed, John caught up with Kurt and pressured him all the way to X. Kurt was able to establish the inside of the rounding with John very close by. Once the fleet had rounded X, it broke apart with lots of lanes open to everyone. A tacking duel between Kurt and John ensued which Kurt won by causing John to tack into a bad header about ½ way between X and Lido Island. Kurt was able to cruise to the finish without any serious challenge. Of course, try as he did, Kurt didn’t get any boats between himself and John so John & Jamie Jr. took home the trophy.

Place	Skipper, Crew (Club)	Sail#	1	2	3	Final
1	John Papadopoulos/Jaimie DeWolfe (BYC)	5031	1	1	3	5
2	Kurt & Anne Wiese (NHYC)	4611	2	2	2	6
3	Jaime & Steven DeWolfe (BYC)	4270	3	3	1	7
4	Jim Jackman & Eric Hall (BYC)	6158	4	4	4	12
5	Greg Boudreaux & Steve Kiser (BYC)	3650	5	5	5	15