CNU Sailing

On Saturday the First A Div. race was sailed in 15-25 from the SSW. Picked up to 25-36 in the middle of the second race.  7 boats finished among a yard sale of boats and bailers. We postponed until 2:15; breeze moderated to 14 -18 from the west, before dropping to 5-8 knots. Sailed 4 races in A & B.

Sunday was quite different from Saturday.  2 A division and 2 B division races were sailed in a shifty NNW at 7-9 before shutting off near the end of race 6B.  Races were sailed on a windward leeward course with a gate.

With so many of our team members from the Fall out of sailing for the Spring due to scheduling conflicts in afternoon classes, we were starting the Spring season with many questions to be answered. We went to ODU with the idea that the ODU Spring Open was to be a “fact finding mission” and that is just what it turned out to be. We saw some things of which to be concerned, but most of what we learned was to the good. In particular, we found several good skipper/crew combinations that will let us get the best performance from our relatively small team. We are expecting Becca Hornick to be Kate McClintock’s primary crew, but she is on the “DL.” This gave us a chance to see how Patrick McCabe-Marcell and Kate could work together and their consistent single digits was just what we wanted to see. We know that Matt Lythgoe and Amy Polhemus are going to be an excellent light to moderate wind pair. But the off-the-scale winds in the first race of the weekend confirmed that Matt will need a heavier crew in the heavy stuff. But Matt and Amy were not the only ones with their hands full as only seven of the 16 teams finished one race. Maxwell Plarr stepped into the front of Matt’s boat for the rest of the series and proved to be just what we needed to balance Amy. Taylor Gray and Lynn Ball sailed a B Division series on Sunday and confirmed that they are still developing well. So, our tenth place wasn’t bad, but what we learned for the rest of the Spring was even better.

IMAGE: Amy Polhemus, Patrick McCabe-Marcell, Becca Hornick, Kate McClintock, Lynn Ball, Max Plarr, Taylor Gray and Matt Lythgoe

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 8:51 PM and is filed under 2007-2008 Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.