Racing May 15

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Our first race of the season was held on a cool 50F degree day, with a tasty 12-15 knots of NNE breeze. Chris was back on the boat for the first time this year, and Brendan filled in for Jon at bow. Mel was out of town, so we sailed with 4 and not our usual 5. We were VERY keen to see how the new sails would worked out when sailed in anger. The race started out very well, when the start was hit with a HUGE lefty. Noticing this as we approached the line, we tacked, ducked one boat, and crossed three to be the first to head out lifted.



At the top mark, two boat that owed us big time caught us, but we were in front of all similar rated boats and all the ensigns. We set up for a bear-away set.




As you can see in the vid, that went well and we raced downwind in 14 knots of breeze doing over 7 knots boatspeed, pulling away from our followers and gaining on the faster boats. Things were looking great!

Sadly our downfall was our drops. With new crew on the boat, twice we could not get the kite down in time and sailed way past the leeward mark. Grrr. But the good news is that was the only failure of the day, we'll sort that out and be back at top!


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