This was a hot day. The temperature had reached 101 degrees, but the wind had been blowing steadily from the north at 10 to 12 knots. When we got to the boat, the wind had switched 180 degrees, and it was now blowing from the south at about 6 to 8 knots.

    At first, it looked like a port tack at the pin would be good, but after watching several starts, we saw that this would be death. We decided that our best start would be a starboard reach along the line, pick up lots of speed and come up at the gun.

    We executed well, and started about 1/3 of the way down the line from the committee boat which was the Whitbread 60, Chessie. We had good speed, and rolled over J22s and Catalina 27s like they were standing still, which they were. The rest of our fleet was pretty well buried. Lin Gin and Phantom had gotten into a mess at the Chessie, and Argo, Sundance were underneath a bunch of boats at the pin, and Laughing Gull and Second-2-Nun were late. We had won the start.

    We covered the leward half of the fleet, considering them to be the bigger threat. We tacked to cover them, and started to get a lift on port tack heading out. This kept us on this tack with a wary eye on our main competitor, Skybird. She was following us, but was outpointing us. This was disconcerting, but we had to sail our boat. We were in a good groove, and were able to hold off Skybird's advances, but she was definitely gaining to weather.

    We realized that we were going to have to go to the layline and make the boats behind us play follow the leader. If we called the layline right, or overstood a little, Skybird would be behind us. We tacked too soon for the mark, and had to make another two takcs to get there. Skybird went with us, but was able to get inside of us with her pointing. Phantom and Lin Gin had gained and were only a 6 or 8 boatlengths behind us.

    It was pretty much a parade to the leward mark. We were two boatlengths behind Skybird after a Catalina 27 went above us, and we had to push them over to get some room. At the mark, Skybird continued on, which is what we wanted to do as well. The Catalina ended up catching them.

    We road right up to Skybird's stern, and then gybed so that we would not just be following them. In those conditions, we would not be able to pass them. We went toward SSA at that point, our course being dead downwind from us. Skybird went in further, and ended up buried under a bunch of boats after she gybed. We had clear air and speed.

    I saw a line of starboard gybed boats that Skybird was going to have to duck. We gybed right in the line, while Skybird was ducking the first one. The next one cleared her with no problems, but the boat in front of us gybed earlier than I expected, and Skybird slipped through. As we approached the harbor, the wind went forward because of the geography. Skybird was sailing a high course with a spinnaker, and was getting run over by others with spinnakers who were coming in from our side. We saw our chance and aimed directly for Skybird who was just past the mark. She had almost no way on, while we had about 3 knots of speed. We came right up to her, headed up, lowered the pole and pulled right away from her. We kept going until we caught up to a bunch of boats ahead in an impenetrable, slow moving mass. It was then time to drop the spinnakers because the wind was too far forward. Skybird now had clear air and had put her genoa up first. She was trying to ride above us.

    As soon as we got the chute down, I used what momentum we had to shoot up above Skybird and force her to duck us. I kept going until I was up to the top line of the mass of boats, where there was some clear air and the boats were moving. Skybird passed us to leward, but she was stuck in dirty air, and soon slowed and fell off. She wasn't able to make the Yacht Basin corner, and had to tack. We had Skybird now. We were in first. . .

    Where did Phantom come from. It seems that she had come in way overtop of us with clear air and she was now in first. There was a hundred and fifty feet to the finish, and we had to make up a boatlength. The breeze was light and puffy. When we had a puff, we went straight for the line on a moderately close reach. When the wind lightened, we headed up a little and put our speed to work to increase the apparant wind. This slowly worked and then we just accelerated passed Phantom. She was falling off in the breeze, and so was losing her apparant wind when her speed increased. We beat her by one and a half boatlengths.

    The first five boats finshed within 90 seconds of eachother, the first three within 30 seconds. It was truly a great race for everyone, especially us.