Canceled due to no wind.  BAH!

Although when I did get to the boat, I did notice that the boat was infested with ants and monkeys….The ants came from the docks, the little bastards had climbed across the dock lines.  They are all over the boat.  And they are fast little suckers.

The monkeys might have come from Trick Monkey as retaliation for the little Olson/Melges love tap the night before…

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….

Well, we couldn’t do any worst than yesterday, right?

Actually we didn’t.  Skiles was on the boat taking care of the helm while I just ran around trying to do everything that needed to be done.

Somehow he hit Trick Monkey before the start.  Now this is the Second Melges 24 we have hit this year…I am starting to call Speedster The BigBadMelges Eater…

Due to the accident, we started about a minute late.  But let me tell you, what a difference the helmsman makes.  He had us catching up as soon as we crossed the start line.  We rounded the course and finished the race barely one boat length behind Swale…

We did much better as a team…we got a 14th. Not great, but not as bad as the night before.

I was so excited!  So we had a full boat.  Spencer came on board for the first time, the man knows way more about racing a boat then he let on when we were emailing back and forth.  At first we tried to put him up on foredeck, have Dwight fly the chute.  Foredeck on the Olson is a bit harder than it sounds…it did not go well.

Then Justin said that he knew how to fly the chute, so that solved all of our issues.  He would fly it, Dwight would handle the foredeck, Peter was grinding on the headsail, Virginia would help everywhere she could, and Jamie would hang out and watch the chaos that would soon ensue.

We had a pretty good start, it was a downwind and I think we crossed within 10-20 seconds of our predetermined time.  First leg was no biggy, we were on the same gybe all the way to the mark.  We had an issue taking down the Chute, but that was my fault.  Things did not improve too much.

We had been debating what headsail to use, and to be safe rather than sorry, we went with the little guy.  That cost us.  Wind died, but most everyone had their number 1 up.  We also did not have the little guy on the right track.  Pointing was difficult, and we lost ground…lots of ground.  I tacked too early for the third mark and we ended up having to pinch to get around it.  Slow…lost ground

We hoisted the Spin and WOOOOOOOOO, we went on a tight reach.  We actually gained on some boats thanks to Spencer.

Finished 28th…not good.  Not good at all.

Bryan Calk was in from Kuwait on leave.  He wanted to get out on the water…there was a race on the lake, so we went to BayView to race the Wed Night Series…Bryan, Dwight, and I sailed her to the north side of the lake and picked up Peter at the dock.  We were a bit light on crew, but we handled it.

Start was right on, we tacked out of the nasty air and headed for the middle of the lake…We decided to tack back and that is when things did not go well…A little overwrap and we practically pulled the Jib Sheet Cleat off the deck….DOH!!!  We couldn’t trim, we couldn’t release, we spent a good 3 minutes trying to get the sheet out of the cleat.  Thank our lucky stars we were going fast and were on starboard tack.

We cleared the foul and headed toward the Mark.  At the mark, imagine what my face looked like when the SWALE (the boat I normally crew on) is at the mark before us.  OverKill (the other Olson30), S-Cape, Geranimo, and Hotsy are right there too…I guess we had not lost as much time as I thought.

Rounded the mark and we took off…got behind S-Cape and Stayed there for the rest of the race.  We finished as the trhird boat, but ended up 6th after the corrections.  BAH!  Much props to SWALE…nice third kids.

Had a BBQ at the dock with the rest of the sailors, and decided to head back to RCYC…as soon as people heard we were having a late night cruise, there was a frenzy for getting coolers on the boat.  We left RCYC with three, and got back with seven I think.  There were also 7 coolers…

By the way, if you ever have a starboard bow light out….cut a 7up or sprite plastic bottle bottom off and duct tape it to a flashlight.

Dwight took the night pics…

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.