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Our GPS Track…

Chirs from Swale challenged us to another race.  When will that boy learn!  This time; it JoJo, Bryan, Mike, his girl Kay, and I crewing Speedy!  You know the routine…we load her up.  Drag her 5 miles to the north side of the lake.  Race…Kick some ass…and head back home…You want to read the whole story?

Well, we started a bout 30 seconds late.  Although I think Geronimo started about a minute in-front of us, and she carries the same Handicap as we do.  What are we going to do!?  Yell at her to come back?

We tried the same thing that we did the last time, we headed to the west shore, while the entire fleet (except Hotter Tuna) headed toward the east shore.  I think the fleet found some better wind.  After we got on our eastern tack, we noticed how far ahead of us the rest of the fleet was.  JESUS!

We were going to need a miracle.  Between Mike and Bryan, we had it.  They got us back into the running with some tactical tacks and we were back in the swing of it.  WoooHooooo.  Around the mark we were third or fourth, but right behind our friends on Swale.  Our spinnaker pops up, and that would be the last Swale would see the front of our boat.  Now we had to keep up with Tuna, reel in S-Cape and another boat.  We gybed, we did all we could, but the best we could do is scratch out a third.  Still in front of Swale, though.  Maybe I should have let Swale win….after all it was Chris’ birthday………NAH! Better Luck Next Time Birthday Boy!!!

Gone! Eat my Wake Swale!

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

So we ended up only having the three of us on the boat.  It actually worked out OK…we could have used a bit more weight on the rail, but we launched the chute like champs.  Who needs a crew of 5, when 3 can do it.  Actually I was very impressed with the whole night.  Three months ago, I would have never thought we could handle the boat with three.  Kick Ass.  We almost did catch Swale, but they did keep their position.  That was some fantastic downwind sailing.  They absolutely killed it!

As is customary after the Wed Night races, we docked the boat at bayview and started the BBQ Party.  Look as Scott manning the grill…I would call him the Official HamburgerHelper…We ate, had a couple of beers and decided to take Speedy back to RCYC.  Shannon came along for the ride.  We might have or not “borrowed” a bow light from a boat.  Safety First Kids. I can say that if I had borrowed a light from a boat, I did also return it. Overall I think last night was a great sail…we just need to leave RCYC a bit early.

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….

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…

I read the Race Instructions at least three times, I knew our start time was at 7:05….I JUST KNEW IT.  We were a bit late leaving the dock, but I though we would have plenty of time to get to the start.  We had a hiccup in setting up the boat and it became apparent as soon as we started tacking.  Not a big deal but we did have to hang out for a couple of minutes before heading towards the start.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the other boats starting…I called for the time and it was 7:00…Surely they were just getting ready…when the other boats did not turn around after a minute, I knew something was wrong.  We turned the boat and BOOOKED it for the start…we got there at 7:04:56, crossed at 7:05…and we played catchup for the rest of the night.  The Breeze was good and we did pretty good.  No foul-ups, and plenty of cold beer.  NICE

We finished, put the boat aways and read the Race Instructions for the 7th time…our start was at 7:05…the other boats jumped the GUN!  Can you say WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER?  So what that it was by default.  It is still a Numero UNO!  NICE!

Chris, Dwight, Mandy and Scott were a great crew….I am not sure how we didn’t get any 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.