R1 - Class 1 starters eked by the pin against strong head current in a fickle easterly breeze .

Leaders Speck, Ishkoodah, Sunshine Daydream found their lanes on starboard tack as they headed left toward Great Reef in search of a header.

Meanwhile, other Class 1 boats Archangel and Cathexis are stuck in irons, carried backward on the current. Eventually both boats get on the course, albeit amid Class 2 boats maneuvering for their own start. Oh, the misery.

Archangel and Cathexis begin to move up the first beat on port tack with clear air and a faint but building southeasterly breeze. J/33 Archangel found a lane well behind leading Class 1 boats that had tacked to port.

Cathexis stepped out to the right side of the beat into a freshening southeasterly from mid-Sound that promised a header -- and maybe a path to redemption. Powered by and 150% genoa the heavy X382 on a smooth surface of darkening ripples, before confidently tacking to starboard. A minute later Cathexis crosses ahead of Ishkoodah and Speck to take the Class 1 lead.

Is this a fluke or more of a new and improving Cathexis? After all, they did win their class in the Block Island Race the weekend before.

Rather than consolidate ahead of Class 1, Cathexis overplays their hand by continuing across to the left side of the beat -- out of the building breeze that they had owned and into a dying breeze that Speck and Ishkoodah had just abandoned. The foul current took its toll also.

From hero to zero, Cathexis fell behind steadily and by the top of the leg Ishkoodah, Speck, and Sunshine Daydream rounded the upwind mark well ahead of Cathexis.