Racing 4/28/10 - tight victory!

Another windy race! There was an email earlier in the day, talking about the Small Craft Advisory that was in place, and that racing was the sole discretion of the RC on the day. Thankful SEAL was RC, and a 20kn breeze with gusts to 25 from the NW wasn't going to stop them!

Brigite & I were really looking forward to racing, and were well pleased that we were going ahead with the racing, especially as it was so warm and sunny.

RC apparently forgot to pick up the flags, and all they had was one flag, the S flag. So they put that up at 5 minutes and took it down at go time!!! The line was about as far off as it could be - with the pin virtually downwind of the RC boat!

We had a great start at the very favored boat end. We came in tight reaching and closed the door on a couple of boats trying to barge in.

After the start Mariah overtook us and took us upwind to leeward. I couldn't point that high, and I think they were getting upset, then we went over a big swell and Silver Fox bashed down, spraying a big wave of water into the cockpit of Mariah!!! I found it very funny and good instant karma!

Big lefty came in closer to the shore, followed by righty further out. We did pretty good, but not as good as the boats to weather.

Then we couldn't lay the mark, not even with the tide helping, so had to double tack, and a couple of boats went past.

Close hauled reach out to L. We had the #3 and a reef and were only slightly below optimum power. Shook out the reef as we approached L.

Then a broad reach to K, with nice swells that we were able to surf. But with the big main and little jib the boat was not balanced, and needed allot of helm in the swells. The furler squad were all able to unroll more sail and really rip!

Dispite that we were hitting great bursts of speed, including one that the GPS said was over 9 knots!!!

Then a tighter reach to the finish, where we managed to hold off the blue canoe hulled Coeur d'Alene who only owed us 3 seconds per mile!

There was another Spinnaker class boat racing - Baserunner, which we beat by a mere 2 seconds corrected! A tight victory for Silver Fox!!!