Weds. Night Series 1 Race 2

At 5:30 there was a light breeze from the East-South-East. It was gone by 6:10. A South-Westerly filled in a little before 7:00. The RC took us out to T, where we raced a 3 lap Windward-leeward to a mobile mark set along the Morgan shoreline.

The starting line was really skewed, the pin favored by 30 degrees. My plan was to run the line on starboard and tack on to port when we go to the pin. It didn't work. Sinn Fein was in my hole. I managed to find a spot at the boat, but we were in the third row. For Sail tacked off our hip on to port. We held starboard take for another couple of minutes going slow and eating gas. When we finally tacked off Jimmy was already a boat length ahead.

The right side was okay, the boats coming out of the left were doing much better. Boat speed seemed okay. We got stuck under Sinn Fein as they were going ballet near the weather mark. Slow slow slow.

It took us a little while to get the chute up, but once we got rolling we sailed much deeper than the boats to our left. The leeward mark was an adventure in sail handling, we rounded bare headed just behind Poppy.

Somehow we held our lane as the breeze shifted left. We held port tack until we sailed into a nice righty. We tacked on a few shifts and rounded the weather mark in better position: Slice, Factory Girl, For Sail and Blue Meanie were still ahead of us but we're gaining.

On the third beat we played the left side and passed Factory Girl. We over-stood the finish because the course as posted said to round M to starboard. We were far enough behind the leaders, so we had time to decide how were were going to finish. Everyone drove straight through the line, so did we. The boat was favored, over-standing cost us Magic.

Somehow we were 4th. Blue Meanie, who should have won, retired due to an incident at the leeward mark.

The crew was:

Bob -- on the bow
Vicky
Laura
Pavel
Eric O
Charlotte
me

Weds. Night Tune-up #2

No sailing this week due to thunderstorms. I'll be out of town next week, our next Weds race will be May 30th. Is anyone interested in sailing Memorial Day?

Weds. Night Tune up #1

Well at least we made the start. At 5:15, the life-lines still weren't attached. I forgot the spinnaker and had to borrow one from Bengt.

The Race:

The course was between a mobile mark set along the southern shore of the bay and "T". At the start the breeze was 6-9 out of the east. We started, poorly, about mid-line in Factory Girl's gas. Slice started clean farther down the line. We tacked to clear and separated from Magic and Factory Girl; partly due to the right shift and partly due to boat speed.

We were slow down wind. Factory Girl and Magic caught up. Slice legged out. We managed to round just inside of Magic. As the breeze went right, things looked okay.

The bottom fell out. The breeze shifted so far to the right, that the boats on the left, Magic and Factory Girl, made the mark in pressure; meanwhile we set the chute and drifted down to the mark, DFL.

The crew work was pretty good. We sailed with 11:
Aaron, Bob, Scott, Pavel, Brian, Vicki, Neil, Jim Mack, Charlotte & me.

My DICY nomination

I may as well write Kelly's intro for him.

The day started out calmly enough. Dad came down to mount the engine ; Bob and Bengt to raise the mast. Both went off with out a hitch. Then the trouble started.

It turns out, yesterday morning, I grabbed the dead battery, not the one I just charged. So I borrow a battery from Magic, who is also tied to the bulk head, and get the engine started; we return the battery and Magic starts her engine. As we go to pull out both boats are aground. Magic in deeper water manages to free herself. Anemone needs to get towed off by the launch.

The first couple of attempts failed. Luckily Bengt and Ann were around and we managed to heal the boat enough to drag her out.

At least the engine runs. Frank is inspecting the keel this morning.

Launch Day

The boat's in the water. We were done by 12 noon or so, and spent the rest of the afternoon readying the mast. The plan is to step it tomorrow sometime after nine am -- weather permitting. If there's a strong easterly, we'll step the mast Monday after we seat the engine.

Monday my Dad will be down with the engine.

First race is Weds. Be at the boat by 5:10pm

It's Alive

Dad managed to clean out the intake manifold and get the engine started. Monday we'll try to put it all back together.

Launch day is tomorrow. We start at 6am.

We're halfway to an outboard

My Dad and I pulled the engine last Sunday. Hopefully the intake manifold is not beyond repair, and we can have the head cut and remount the engine next week. Otherwise, we'll have to decide whether or not to convert the boat to an outboard.