The plan was to take some of Mandy’s old friends out for a cruise to see if they enjoyed the whole sailing thing. We all met at th club and proceeded to go sailing.  It was Mandy, her old friends and their two boys, their cousins from out of town, and their two kidos…and me.  We had 10 on the boat…I was not sure that many could fit.

Wind was great going out and we cruised the lake just flying the main.  We then headed back and noticed that the wind was a bit light, so we put up the 100.  It got us moving…then the wind really died.  We took down the 100 and put up the 155.

Then the wind really died.  We were just sitting there…I am not sure what happened, all day the wind was coming from the north and then all of a sudden the wind started to come in from the south.  And I mean it started to BLOW! Took down the Genny…and tried to make it back to the club with the main.  And if I had my choice we would have reefed that too!  I mean it was blowing…

Appearently the club memebers could see what was happening  and were taking bets on whether we could make it back safely.  WE DID…got the boat tied up and waited for what was to be a KILLER storm that was coming through.

Mandy’s friends escaped to the safety of their cars and headed home.  The regular crew (Dwight, Jamie, Mandy, and Sheryl) decided to wait out the storm to help me put back the boat.  Richy Rich, his new GF Lyn, and her mother were there too.  We all headed into the club and found out that the race had been postponed.

I was not giving up though.  Afterall, it is TEXAS!  Wait 20 minutes and the weather will change!  So it took a little over 20 minutes, but the storm went away…we headed to the boat to drink all the booze we had brought.

I think we were over compensating since the last couple of weeks we stated to run a bit short at the end of the night.  I think there was about 4 or 5 cases of beer…thats a lot of beer for what was to be a 3 hour cruise…even for 8 people!

Mark (barking fish) also joined us at the boat, and we had Yummy Chicken salad that Mandy made while drinking the beer!  All of a sudden we looked up and the sky was Sunny!  Let’s GO people…we rigged the boat and went out for our booze cruise and race…the race committe canceled the race, but we still had our BC…

We even picked up Shannon from Chandliers…Mark brought in the boat to the dock, and she jumped right in…we didn’t even stop! Wooooohoooooooooo….

We proceeded to lose the new pee bucket Sheryl had bought…that’s two in two weeks…

As we headed home, the wind died and we didn’t get back to RCYC till 1 in the morning.  Left the boat in the water…and headed home.  I had been at the club since 3 in the afternoon.  I was DONE!

Ok…Dwight and I took pics and they are now up at the new Picasa Album for the boat…the address is http://pics.MySpeedster.INFO

Pictures don't do her Justice, THE NEW NAV LIGHT!

WooooHooooooooooooooooooooo…We raised Dwight up the mast today and he fixed the NAV light…WE ARE LEGAL BABY!!!  No more “Borrowing” a light.  We also removed the babystay and got some other minor repairs done.

All this so that we can race tonight and not have to come in after the race.  Let me first say, that I am an idiot.  I might have made a couple of tactical errors during last night’s race.  But, what the Hell was going on at the start…I am not sure how that worked, but we got off to a decent start.  Heck we even got to the first mark in a timely manner…from there on things did not go too well.  I might have yelled out something to Barking Fish, when the was no reason for it.  Its just that we were going downwind, and it looked like he was coming across us going the other way kinda.  You’re confused?  No, apparently I was the confused…I had a lesson thought to me by Mark, and I might have touched his boat with part of my spinnaker.  OK so I did…he protested…I didn’t correctly do my penalty turns…we pretty much might have been DQed… I am not sure what happens. Learned my lessons.

We didn’t quite make it back to the club with the rest of the fleet.  We wanted to test out our new/fixed nav light!!!   Did I say how bright that LED bulb is, I think you might be able to see it from the International Space Station.  We cruised across the lake for hours, staring at the LED light, listening to country music, singing, and maybe having a couple of drinks!  We must have been a bit loud though, the people on the RCYC Deck didn’t care too much for our  singing.

Anyways, the Saturday night races are a blast.  You wanna see pictures? Click here…

Saturday night we headed up to RCYC for the usual race…but this was not a usual race.  First of all, we were not one of the two boats racing…there were actually a hand full of IC24′s, some J22′s,  and a couple of Melges 24′s…Woooohoooooo….AND we had a race committe boat.  I was just shocked!!!

At the very least, we had a great crew on the boat.  Dwight on the foredeck, Jamie and Mandy trimming the Jib, Sheryl on spinnaker duty, with me at the helm and Joanne was there for emotional support.   We did OK with the start sequence and only were off by seconds.  Sure beats being off by minutes like we were last Wednesday.

Did our laps and ended the race trying to gybe the boat at the finish and hanging the spinnaker around the forestay…That was ugly…and everyone made sure to come by and make a comment.  THANKS!

We went back to drop Mandy off at the marina, and ended up staying there all night finishing up the beer we had brought.  YEAH, I might have spent the night on the boat…

Dwight has the pics!  Needless to say, I might have been enjoying myself a bit too much.  Photo Album

We left the boat at RCYC when the race got canceled. So today we had to take it back to Chandler’s for the race. As soon as I got the motor up and running, Peter found some wind and we started hauling down. Just my luck.

The Start- I hit the start mark. Had to go around and try that again. Giranimo proceeded to do the same thing. By the time we got an offical start, we were so far behind. Popped the chute and started heading towards the first mark. I hate that mark… I am not sure why, but I am just not a big fan of it. We rounded and stalled the boat. I mean we were not going anywhere…we just sat there.

I am having issues reaching on that boat in light wind. I think maybe the sails are trimmed in too tight. Dwight tried to rig up the VMG spin, but it was a short leg and by the time it was done, we were too close to the second mark. I looked behind us…there was not a single boat back there. Somehow we were in dead last again. Son of a BITCH!

Rounded the mark, tightned up the boat and all of a sudden we started to speed up to the third mark. We were headed right for it, didn’t even have to tack one time. And we were fast, we started passing boats. Really!

Came to the third mark and saw Swale going down to the finish. They had us by at least 10 or 20 boat lengths. Barking Fish was right there too…we setup the VMG spinnaker and rounded the mark. I guess we picked the right sail. We started to haul ass! Passed a couple of boats and were trying to take over MasCaliente when we were foiled. They kept pushing us up and I started heading lower. While we were messing around here, Giranimo came in from behind. and tried to go above us. Now I had two boats trying to take our wind. SOB.

We fought Giranimo off and were actually taking over MasCaliente, when I lost all concentration. Out of nowhere, Giranimo sped by us and took all our wind….there we were barley moving. All because I stopped paying attention for a minute. ROOKIE MISTAKE!!!

Well that was it, we lost a spot to Giranimo, another to Mas Caliente, and another to Barking Fish. I AM SO PISSED AT MYSELF.

The crew was perfect tonight. Peter and Virginia kicked ass. Spencer and Dwight had that boat moving. The only thing that slowed us down was me. HATE THAT!

Still one of the most enjoyable days of racing/sailing. The battles were awesome. We did beat Swale, but let Barking Fish by. I was all by myself today. I made my mistakes and let’s hope I learned form them.

As an exercise we did rig up the boat and headed out.  We get out there, and there is a breeze.  We get to the start and Woody is calling tactics.  He was right on, we get a great start and squeeze past Giranimo.  We get on a port tack and head towards Terry Point…I am really starting to dig racing in light wind.  There is so much more finesse to handling the helm.  Careful and purposeful movements, the weight shifts on the boat are immediately recognized.

We were headed a little too much toward the middle of the lake.  I was getting worried that we were just separating too much from the rest of the fleet.  Woody made me keep my course.  That was our saving grace.  The Mark was no where near terry point, rather it was closer to the power plant.  We were headed right for it.  We even had some room to head down and get some speed.

About 300 yards to the mark; Woody, who has only known me for a couple of months, made the most  insightful comment ever.  I guess he could either see or feel that I was getting anxious and told me to chill out.  He further commented that we were on track for the first 2/3 of the race and that I need to keep from losing my concentration now.  I was still anxious.  I just wanted to do something.  We had been on the same tack for almost an hour now.

We approached the mark and were about to round it when we noticed that S-Cape and Progh’s Shooting Star were headed toward the damn.  The two Melges rounded the mark and we didn’t think we could catch them by following them.  We stayed on our tack for another couple hundred yards and tacked on the same line as S-Cape and Shooting Star. That was obviously the right decision.  We beat Barking Fish and Devil Dog in.

We got a 7th, not too bad.  I will take that any day competing against these sailors on light wind.

There are some pictures coming soon….

Hotsy Totsy and Speedster, pic from Orion.

Last weekend we participated in the first Founders Regatta at RCYC celebrating the club’s 40th anniversary.  I was very pleased to see the number of boats involved from all across the lake.  We had racers competing from Chandler’s Landing  Yacht Club as well as BayView Yacht Club.

Friday started with a thorough cleaning of the boat and some small minor repairs.  The cleaning lasted right up to the start of the first race.  (MENTAL NOTE: thorough cleanings should be done AFTER the regatta.)  Saturday I had the pleasure of having Jonesy and the Pussycats (Mandy and Sandra), along with Brad (from Austin Yacht Club) as crew.

Although most of the crew had hardly ever raced on Speedster, I think we did good.  My PINCHING didn’t exactly help our cause.  We got a second, and a fourth for the two races.  Storm came in, we fled to the club.

Sunday, we were lucky to have Peter and Virginia come in and help out on the boat. Dwight also joined the crew to help out.  Thank god he did.  Peter almost had a couple of heart attacks trying to bring in that big old 155 Genoa. I bumped into Barking Fish/king Fish before the start of a race.  Learned that both boats need not close one gap.

Speaking of learning…Brad’s advise and teaching was invaluable.  I learned more about racing in the two days Brad was on the boat than I had ever known.   Wind was good, weather was good, and I think we made a vast improvement as the day went on. Even though my pinching problem was a bit more under control, I started to over rotate during tacks.  I don’t think Brad liked that, and more than once I was reminded of that.

Hotsy Totsy gave us hell.  It was back and forth with those guys.  Even though we give them a few seconds, they were all over us.  Around every mark, at every start, every finish, we were only seconds apart.  That was the highlight of this weekend.

We actually got three races in on Sunday and by the last race we were a well oiled machine, with two fourths and a second, we finished the regatta in 3rd (out of 4)…but I was OK with that, even though the biggest reason was my driving.  I need a whole lot of practice.

Speaking of  practice, I am trying to get together a crew to do the Saturday Damn Series.  It starts around 12 and we cruise up and down the lake in a very leisurely pace.  If anyone is interested, please let me know.

Ok, so Virginia took a ton of pictures…Click Here