1st day of racing, Charleston Race Week 2010

Today marked my first day of racing on the Melges 20 and I had an absolute blast! I'm sailing together with Michael Kiss (who hails from Macatawa Yacht Club) and Dan Morris (scow sailor from Minnesota). Today's conditions let us capitalize on our lst two days of practice. The breeze was up most of the day and peaked at around 22 knots during the 3rd race. Our race scores were a 4th, 3rd, and two 2nds, so we're pretty happy with our performance so far.
We have 14 Melges 20 in our fleet and there are some impressive teams on the line. Jeff Ecklund (sailing with Harry Melges), Joel Ronning (sailing with Billy Hardesty), Mary Anne Ward (sailing with Sam Rogers), Scott Weakly (sailing with Mike Wolf), Robert Wilbur (sailing with Andy Burdick) to name a few. The boats are pretty challenging to sail upwind and require a super focused helmsman and a vigilant jib trimmer, that keeps track of the puffs and continously works the jib sheet. Both Michael and Dan did a great job on their part and allowed us to round the 1st windward mark in good shape (except when we were OCS and had to turn back or when I underestimated the current relief close to shore). But where our team truly showed their potential was downwind. Dan's 49er experience combined with good helming let us literally smoke other boats on every downwind leg. The boats are so twitchy and they really reward good instant kite trimming and appropriate helming.
There are a couple of lessons I take away from today's sailing:
1. Don't underestimate the current relief
2. Vang off, main in on downwinds
3. Trim the jib pretty hard upwind in flat water (until main is backwinding)
4. Trust your team mates to do their jobs, and focus on your own job

So far Charleston has lived up to the expectations with great competition, good breeze and a relaxing shore atmosphere.

Looking forward to some more exciting racing tomorrow
Chris out