Ballard Cup 1

Have a very nice day of racing yesterday, with the wind blowing hard!  Committee Boat said they saw 50 knots of breeze before they left the dock, but most of the racing was done in 20-30 knots.  We were shorthanded with just Al, John, Kenyon, and I having experience, but we rounded up Sterling and Ashley just as we were leaving the dock.

Nice sailing with #4 and no reef in the main.  Could have used one at times, but didn't have the reef line led.  Oh well.  We started exactly 5 minutes early, then got set up for a re-start by sitting on Beltane and forcing them to start directly behind us in dirty air.  Luckily there was plenty of breeze to go around!

We followed the fleet up to the L mark, rounded, went wing and wing directly at Meadow Point, gybed the main, rounded beat up to the mid-channel mark in about 5 minutes, went wind and wing again, rounded and finished.  The whole race took something like 40 minutes.

First in class, First overall.  Kotuku takes care of business when the wind blows.

See you next Monday!

Race to the Straits Photos

We had a wonderful race up to Port Townsend and back.  We had very favorable uphill conditions on Saturday, the girls were wonderful and watched movies all day while I grunted and sweated and tacked.  And tacked.  And tacked.  Double-handing is hard work, and all my time loafing behind the steering wheel hasn't exactly built up the strength I needed to tack the old girl a hundred times in 30 miles.  Janna seemed to be having fun though!

We ended up second, behind Westerly, the beautiful old yawl sailed by a couple of wily veterans.  We were also the second monohull to finish--out of 110 or so--so that took the sting out of losing a bit.  And we won the Jack and Jill class for the day.  Then we had a wonderful dinner featuring a 70lb halibut that my dad and Janna's dad caught the day before.  Life in the PNW is good!

Day 2 was downwind, not great for Non-flying sails class, but we did our best.  We managed to get ahead of Westerly and Breeze, our toughest NFS competitors, and then we just tried to keep our boat between them and the finish line.  It worked.  Results are here:
http://styc.org/race_info/RaceToTheStraits/2012/race1.htm


We had a great weekend.  Thanks to everyone from the Sloop who made it possible, and to Tom and Marie for hosting us in PT!

Photos taken by Jan's Marine Photography.  Thanks Jan!

Also, a very interesting review of the race here:
http://www.pressure-drop.us/forums/content.php?3482-Epic-Shorthanded-Racing