McIntyre Team Race - 2019
McIntyre Team Race was a great learning experience for our team. The conditions we had at Stanford were great for team racing. It was pretty light and shifty but steadily clocked to the left both days. This made the pin favored for a lot of the races as the constant shifts to the left meant people were tacking onto port right after the start. Two of the races that we lost were because we were behind at the start. We still need to keep in mind which side of the line is favored and not being clustered together at the start. The other team was able to win both times because they had two of their boats at the pin whereas all three of us were closer to the boat relatively speaking. Other than that, for pretty much every other race we had we’d be winning at some point and it was close.
I think something we learned is that we still have to keep in mind fleet racing tactics even though it is a team race. One aspect of the race that we need to work on is the downwind. That was always where we lost it when we went from a winning combination to a losing combination. We need to work on not getting caught in mark traps at the leeward mark. All in all, it was definitely fun regatta where we learned a lot. Our alumni Blaine Pedlow and Bryan Macdonald were there as umpires. Big thanks to Blaine for coaching us after the races! We definitely have a lot to work on for team racing but it was good practice for team race PCCs.