For our grand finale, the wind was pretty much the same southerly direction as for yesterday morning's race, but had increased to perhaps 8 to 12 knots. The RC decided that this would be a good time to let us experience more of Greenwood Lake and gave us the Long Course, buoys to starboard (S-2-7-8-S). The nice hiking breeze also meant that on our boat, we would not be resting my skipper's surgically repaired knees by letting him stay on one side of the boat all beat long as we had done in the previous races. Today, he would need to be always on the "high" side. Fortunately for us, we got off to a good start and moved into an early lead which meant we could hold the much longer port tack towards #2 as long as we wanted and keep our tacks to a minimum.

But alas, they were coming closer!!! We tried to defend against the main body of the fleet by staying directly between them and the next mark, but it soon became apparent that we should have hugged the west shore which was getting (even) better breeze as the wind funneled right along that shore where Robert Krahulik (not shown in this pic) was making big gains. 
- click here for full-size pic

Note how Dave Nickels (4176) is leaving the fleet to go after Robert Krahulik who has now moved into the lead near the west shore. If Robert puts more than one boat between himself and Dave at the finish, Robert will win the series, either on the tie-breaker or outright on points.   - click here for full-size pic

This was the last we saw of Robert Krahulik who was sailing with his son, Thomas, on this day. The Krahuliks continued to get the fine wind along the shore and then briefly reached up to round onto the reach at full speed. After this, they seemed to consistently pull away and won with relative ease. 2nd around the gybe mark was Dave Nickels while Jack Sanderson (nearest the camera above) broke the overlap with Dan in time to round 3rd.

We were still in close pursuit of Jack as we rounded onto the beat. When Jack held starboard towards the east shore and let us get onto the much longer tack first, Dan and I had hopes of passing Jack, but Jack ended up sailing well into a big starboard tack knock which of course translated into an equally big port-tack lift when he finally did tack. We kept waiting for Jack's lift to end so that he'd have to sail the significantly lower port course we were sailing, but it never did, and we got axed.


It wasn't until far too late that I remembered something I've seen in books but rarely experienced: When the wind blows diagonally off a shore, it apparently wants to blow at right angles to that shore and bends briefly to blow at a steeper angle to the shore before resuming its original direction further off shore (see attempted diagram above). The trick, of course, is to go in far enough to get the lift but not so far as to start getting becalmed by the windward shore!! And Jack and Karen trod this fine line masterfully, even moving past Dave Nickels to finish the race in 2nd place. Well done, Karen and Jack!!!

Aboard our boat, meanwhile, we had an inexplicable case of the slows which not even a weed flush helped. Not only did we continue to lose ground on the three boats ahead of us, but we also lost to my "roomies", Neil and Nick who really had Last One in the zone on this final beat. And we were not their only victims: Before the finish, they were catching Dave Nickels quickly enough that the latter had to resort to covering them, knowing that he would lose the National Championship on a tie-breaker, if he fell to a 4th-place finish in this, the final race.

The top 10 in the 6th race (race 8, officially): As mentioned, Robert and Thomas Krahulik, and Jack Sanderson with Karen, sailed great races to finish 1-2. Dave Nickels and Ethan Oslund finished a championship series by doing what they had to do, finish 3rd. Neil Robb and Nick Tanis ended things the perfect way, using their best boat speed of the series to take fine come-back 4th. Dan and Al, while disappointed at having an early lead turn into a 5th by the end of the race, took solace from the fact that they had beaten George Vurno and Joan Reichenbach as they needed to do to preserve their series 3rd behind Dave and Robert.

Mark and Peggy Quiniff completed a sound series with a 6th ahead of Phil and Mindy Faulkner who had their best result of the series in their 7th. Daniel and Brennen Leon nailed down an 8th ahead of AYS club mates, George and Joan, while 10th went to Al and Karel Vorel.

Special mention goes to John and Judy Washburn who picked things up a notch and placed 11th in this one, coming oh so close to finally cracking the top ten. Also showing a marked improvement in the finale were Ron Reading and Catie Simmons who beat ten boats and moved up to a 16th, after finishing last or close to it in the previous five races.

And finally, congratulations to all of us for sailing in a Corinthian spirit of keenest competition, yet fairly and in a live-and-let-live manner. It was, as ever, a pleasure to sail with all of you!