Butler Cup II Update

Long Beach, CA - Catalina 30's - by Chris Nesbitt

After the completion of 8 flights with 5 teams, Team Nesbitt sits atop the leader board going1into day 2 (Sunday) of Butler II. The winner gets an invite the the 2011 Grade 2 Ficker Cup. The winner of Ficker Cup 2010 gets an invite to Congressional Cup, the only USA hosted Grade 1 event. Early morning saw building breeze, but the Organizing Authority chose to wait until 1 PM to start when the wind stabilized around 11 knots from the south (150'), to get the first matches underway.

By 4 PM when the last flights had started the breeze had become more patchy and less stable while gradually shifting to the right with puffs to 10 knots followed by lulls @ 7 knots. The pin end of the starting line was favored almost every start all day but due to short beat length boats could sometimes start to the right and still lead at the top mark due to the right shift and pressure. The only loss we suffered today came from an RC call.

After earning a penalty in the pre-start maneuvers we managed to win the pin end of the line which was favored at the time only to get crossed from the right by our opponent on a shift. We ground back and passed them on the second beat only to attempt the penalty turn on the starboard layline and during the process of clearing our first penalty managed to earn a second. Leading around the second windward mark, still with a penalty, we chose to extend and attempt the second penalty turn try just above the boat end of the line, from starboard to port due to the pressure.

As luck would have it we had just finished our second penalty turn of the race only to earn a double penalty at the anchor line on a port starboard encounter with our competitor. This resulted in the umpires issuing us a double penalty but in addition our competitor went by the incorrect side of the committee boat as there was no room for them to fit between us and the RC boat at the time of the incident. While we were still able to complete two more full turns with just the main up and still finish ahead of our competition, we were informed after the race by the umpires that the RC had somehow retroactively determined we had not gotten the entire boat back onto the course side after our last penalty turn prior to finishing. Needless to say we lost the race/point and will be giving the line more space tomorrow should that scenario develop again.

Tomorrow will be the completion of the second and third round robins to determine who advances to the 2011 Ficker Cup.

http://www.team-nesbitt.com/

Congratulations to my former roommate Dina Corsi who sailed on the winning team at the E22 North American's and to Bruce Nelson for winning both races today in a stacked fleet!