Bissell Racing

Day 2 of the Snipe Worlds was more of the same.  Very light wind and a dense fog.  After a long postponement, they finally started the race around 4pm in about 4 or 5 knots.  It is getting frustrating only having one race per day especially since we’d really like a throwout.  We need 4 more races in 2 days for that to happen.

The race for us went much better.  We started down at the favored pin end and had some initial troubles but we were able to tack, bob and weave through a couple starboard boats and find a lane going the way we wanted.  Hitting a few really nice shifts and connecting the dots with the pressure, we reached the windward mark in 3rd.

Danny did a great job telling me where to go on the downwind leg and we caught a boat to round the leeward gates in 2nd.  We and the first place Japanese boat extended from the fleet and turned it into a two boat race.  We took some chunks out of them upwind, but lost a little bit in our approach to the windward mark.  They tacked on us when we were on the layline, forcing us to do two tacks and overstand a little bit. 

We caught up a little bit on the final downwind and since we had some room to play around a little bit, we decided to round the opposite gate and split from them upwind.  Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off, but we managed to hold on for a 2nd place finish.

This jumped us up in the standings 21 places and we are now in 18th.  Still not great, but getting better. 

Peter Commette and Tomas also had great races.  Tomas and Enrique are leading the US Team with a 1,3 and are only one point out of first overall.¼/p>