RE: Duck Dodges (was Information Wanted)

Eric Johnson (etj@nwlink.com)
Wed, 9 Jun 1999 10:17:43 -0700


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West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
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> It would be fun to watch video of the Potter assault
> on the Duck Dodgers. I have never raced, but I can
> dream. Have you ever thought about putting together a
> short video of the races with lots of Potter action
> shots that we could buy?

Well, i just got the video camera and last night was my first taped race. We
did very well relative to how we normally do. I just watched the tape.
Unfortunately, we didn't tape the start which is usually very exciting,
though last night was probably my worst start of the year. We did get on
tape a near collision at the leeward mark, where astonishingly boats were
5-abreast coming around the mark. Normally they are much more spread out. A
C20 slightly upwind of me on the same tack started to drift into the boat
upwind of him (the C20 had rights as far as I can tell, but hard to say as
we were coming to the mark and overlapped). When they fended off from the
other boat, they steered hard to starboard, but didn't remember that I was
right there. We maneuvered quickly to avoid the collision, but it was close.
It was really nice to have all the class 3 boats still so close to eachother
this far into the race. The C20 eventually beat me (not by a whole lot
though).

If we have a NW potter rendezvous this year I'll bring the tape for people
to watch. I'll tape a few more races when I have enough crew to run the
camcorder. I wouldn't sell the tape (its not THAT exciting, and its unedited
and incomplete) but I'd be happy to make copies for anyone interested. I'll
tape more and maybe eventually edit them into a highlights tape to give to
anyone interested.

I had a crew of 3 last night - a guy on the foredeck to keep lookout upwind
(hard to see around the genoa), run the whisker pole downwind, and
generally act as weight to keep the stern up (deck meat!). My brother raced
with us for the first time and was primarily camera man and rail meat (which
we needed on several occasions). I was primarily the helmsman and also did
most of the sheeting. my boat has historically raced best with a crew of two
(esp. in light winds) but the wind was sufficient last night that 3 worked
real well to keep the boat on its feet during gusts while flying the genoa.

Acquiring the genoa and a whisker pole has made me much more competitive for
these races than I was last year. I'm unlikely to take home any 'ducks' this
year on this boat, but I am having a great time.