No Wind....

Sailboat racing is tons of fun... unless you don't have any wind. It's incredible how the anticipation of sailing, competition and comradery changes when everything shows up but the wind... The America's Cup has suffered from this problem and some have found creative ways to deal with the lack of wind and hence no racing...
We didn't have this problem Thursday night. However, we didn't quite have enough wind... especially for Ol' No. 3. It just doesn't get the boat up to hull speed in light air. So that puts us at a disadvantage which can be good. It gives us the opportunity to mix it up more with the fleet. We have to be more precise and mistake free in our maneuvers. We also need to make smarter decisions tactically because it's possible that other boats (with better speed) will also execute their jibes, mark roundings, etc. cleanly.
Two mistakes cost us... probably a couple positions in this race. With a single triangle course, we approached the jibe mark in a virtual tie for second. We had to give the other boat room as they had an overlap with two boats of the mark. Our trimmer thought (rightly) that this was the jibe mark... However, we had already jibed because several boats when high on the previous leg. With his focus up in the air on trimming the kite, he lost track of things and prepared to jibe. That cost us a little advantage on the other boat. They took the low road to separate from all the boats running high. They came into the jibe mark on starboard and we gave them room. They had to execute a pretty sharp jibe (button hook) around the mark. We should have been able to extend on them.
Similarly, at the leeward mark... same boat again... They were short handed and doused the shoot early. We had the opportunity and speed to go above them or below them. Knowing they would be more maneuverable, we chose the latter. However, this meant we couldn't pass them before rounding the mark. We tacked underneath them and gained separation but ending up tacking more on the final leg and crossed the line after them. In hindsight, our skipper thought the better move would have been to go above them. He thought even if the luff up, we'd have more speed and would be able to pass them coming into the final mark.