And this thing is about a 20% slower than GPS speed...If you ask me, we were going around 13 knots. Yeah, 13 sounds right.

And actually, the fastest I saw on the knot meter was 7.3…but we are just splitting hairs now!  Wednesday night we were prepped to go race and kick some Swale ass!  We got the boat in the water and it was all rigged and ready to go!  There was a little concern over some harsh weather that was kinda heading our way.  We risked it and headed out…Thankfully we got a tow out of the marina, since I could not manage to get the boat out by myself.  There was a western wind, and the path is so narrow I coiuld barely pick up any speed and tack….

So we are headed out, nice reach, no worries on getting to the start on time.  I was all kinds of excited.  Half way down, we see lightning.  I am not talking about a bolt, but rather a spider web of lightning stretching from one end of the lake to the other. Seriously, the storm was not supposed to come over us like that!  We debated wether to head to Bay View or head back to RCYC, we debated for all of 2 minute.  We were going to pull a U and go back.    That is when all hell opened up!

I am not sure how fast the wind was, but I would guess it was close to a category 4 hurricane.  We managed to get the Geny down after almost broaching the boat.  Then we Chicken Gyped Speedy and headed back to RCYC…so yeah maybe 7.3 knots does not seem too fast, but when you are doing it with only a main, going downwind it is hairy.

CRAP!!! That is two Wednesday nights ruined because of the weather!

We had a great group on the boat, and we needed it…Wind was blowing so hard that the little engine on the back could not even push us out of the Marina…we did manage to sail out after fighting to get the main up.

As we sailed into the body of the Lake, the Outhaul cable POPPED!!! That was an exciting few minutes…Dwight quickly solved the issue by attaching the flatner to the main. We sailed on…

As we put up the chute to run down the lake, we were surprised by Police…they just wanted to let us know that there was a race about to start, and that we might need to get out of the way…huh? We broke 10 knots going down. Not too bad.

Power Boat Race

Once we get to the 30 bridge, we saw what they were talking about…around ten Fountains were lining up for a race up and down the lake. Helicopter in TOW!!! I managed to take one pic…

Did I mention that we almost BROACHED the boat? Oh yeah…we almost broached the boat. MY BAD, I was not paying attention to what was going on….We recovered, but that would not be the last time trouble would find us…

The race to the damn and back was the main reason we were out, the start was flawless, we had speed, we were on the right tack, we followed our plan…The boat started heading up wind with speed, we were looking good. The plan was to go to the shore and then sail across the lake toward the Power Plant and then back to the damn…that was the plan…somehow we tacked back and forth right up the middle of the lake…it killed us…the fleet sailed the course we had planned and killed us to the mark.

Chute went up with out a flaw and we sped down the lake. A little to late to catch the other boats. And with only a couple hundred yards from the mark, we needed a gibe, and in the tail of the gybe, a wind shift came across and almost caused us to broach, again. This time I might have over reacted and let the Spin Sheet fly a bit too early….We finished the race with the Spin Flying Like Britches in the wind. Poor Peter got smaked in the face with the tweeker block…Sailing is a contact sport after all. We took 3rd….

Minus a couple of bruises and some cuts, we had a good day. I know Chris, from Swale and I learned a lot. He and I were sharing the helm and trying to figure out the course.

I just want to thank Chris, Dwight, and Peter for giving me the opportunity to get “Stick Time”. Julie and Aaron….I hope you guys come back….I know that was a very intense day. Next time, you will have jobs.

NOTE TO SELF…sailing down to the S mark from RCYC, then completing the race, and Going back to RCYC is a long day. We might not be doing that too many times. RCYC is starting a Saturday night series at 7.

You have to check out this Video…I thought we were ballsy to go out in the crazy weather during FrostBite. Check out the OLSON 30, its Green w/ a Yellow Spin, well , what is leftover of the spinnaker…These guys put up the Chute…They broached, but they did put up the chute…Excerpt Greg Larson’s Email to the Olson Mail Group…

” Over the weekend we went out in the Possession Point race in Puget Sound. Winds where around 20-25 some gust over 30. This provided an exciting ride down wind. All went well for a while. Top speed on the knot meter was 16.7. Well the ride eventually came to an end, with a broach. The chute trimmer lost his balance ended up laying on the sheet face down in the water. Boat didn’t come up until someone tripped the halyard half way. When we started to come up one crew up by the mast grabbed the spin sheet and try to pull in the chute, with no real lucky, because the guy was still in the hands of the trimmer. The guy was finally blown which was a mistake. This cause the sheet to be ripped out foredeck guys hands. Now we where there with the chute looking like a big flag flying out of the top of the mast…

…Now we tried to sail downwind to get under spinnaker so it could be retrieved. Only problem was we couldn’t bare away. The main kept bring us backup into the wind. After what seemed like ten minutes we eventually got going down wind and retrieved the kite. Tried everything to get the boat going down wind eventually track and bore off hard and we were able to head down wind.”