Saturday was fun, but strategically a little frustrating. We split from the fleet right out of the box thinking the tide was slack and ended right in the middle of it heading out through the Hussey. It turns about 30 to 40 minutes after it turns in the bay and then its slack for about 15 minutes before it turns again. You’d think I’d know that by now! We saw the entire fleet get in front of us, but we sailed hard and picked our way back into fourth. RC is a fast boat despite the skipper going in the wrong direction! Gregg was reading numbers around 9.5 knots and it didn’t seem that windy. Good times. We had one snag with the spinnaker but crew work was pretty much on target and we got it together pushed on.



Sunday; we saw some really strange weather and we had only 4 people for crew. The first big decision was what to use for a headsail. The breeze was up and down and couldn’t decide on the 155, 150 or 125. We decided to go with the 150 and it worked out well. We waited to the last minute but it put us out of sync at the start so once again the fleet got a jump on us. Once we got to the Hussy though (tip of Cow Island) we sailed almost onto the beach, (making as much use of the tide and back eddy’s as we could) then sailed strait across the tide almost onto the Long Island beach and up by College Rock. A few boats had to duck us because there was no place for them to go except onto the beach. I’m sure some summer home owners were wondering why all these sailboats were sailing so close and dodging their boats still on moorings. We then had a hairy rounding at the windward mark in the Hussey with a couple of boats right on our hip, the wind blowing and current trying to keep us from rounding the mark…..all the sudden the jib sheet parted. Crew work was stellar and we still can’t believe we made the mark, I think we were all in silent reflection for several minutes after the spinnaker went up. We trucked downwind and caught some of the other boats which sailed into a wind hole. That’s when all started hearing the thunder and seeing lightning…the race committee’s calls were heard all over the dead-calm bay, shortening the races, some were headed for their moorings as the storm approached. We figured the storm would be on us before we could get off the boat, so decided that if we were going to get zapped, we would do it racing, not turning tail and running! Our fleet stuck it out as we watched a black carpet unfold across the water and couldn’t tell if it was wind or rain. The wind never came, but the rain (possibly hail, it was too hard to tell) did. The lighting was quite intimidating. I took the aluminum tiller extension off and crew got in the “triangle of safety” just in case we got hit by lighting. Amazingly, two other boats did get hit. Tom Hall’s “Five” was struck and his crew got a burn mark on her chest. Also Ed Roger’s “Revolution” was struck. A crew member was touching the mast and got a shock, and then the instruments went out. All I can say is Dam, good thing everyone was all right! We made a stellar move by being the first to get the chute up when the wind settled down and we squirted past the competition. It was a risk as the wind was very light and the rain was coming down in buckets, we thought the rain itself would collapse the chute. The crew work was once again just about as perfect as you can get and kept us going strait for the finish. We ended up in second for the day which put us in 3rd overall. Not bad considering the other possible outcomes!



P.S.



Special kudos’ go to Monica for the awesome lunches and spin handling, Gregg for being all over the boat when needed and still being on top of the tactical and navigational responsibilities (dude we got close to shore a couple of times…and loving it!). He also found a mistake in the scoring (due to the length of the course being calculated wrong by the race committee), at first costing us the 2nd place. The race committee corrected the error and we got our #2! Reta of course who got the chute up without a hitch when we needed it most. That move, and the entire team being engaged in the race got us to second!



Cheers!





Thursday night race…we’re on!





Harraseeket;



Who; (Crew)



Rich, Pete, Gregg, Rita, Pam, Monica;

Only room for one more! First come, first serve!



What: (race preparation)



Gregg (I’ll get you the charged up GPS and cord on Thursday)

Gregg (will be at the skipper’s meeting)

Pete (Pete has volunteered to be our caterer and chef for Harraseeket!)



When;



Gregg is driving up to Harraseeket Y.C. for the skippers meeting at 10:30, and then hitching a ride out to the course. We’ll look for your cell call and we’ll have the radio on channel 72 so we can be sure to hook up. The rest of us will meet at the Shaw’s parking lot at our new location (at the Goodwill store). Monica found a shortcut to Handy’s. We’ll meet at 9:45. It will take one hr to get from our mooring to the start line.



Why;



Because we can!