Over the weekend four Tufts couples sailed in three boats to Provincetown to a sailing rally. Winds were light on Saturday, with the need for a lot of diesel assistance. For a couple of hours Prairie Gold flew the spinnaker. However, as we were putting her back in the bag and immobilizing the halyard, Phil did not check the snap shackle. As the halyard was tightened, it went high up the mast. Guess we will leave it there for a week or so and fix it when we take the sails down for the end of the season.
We met in Provincetown marina, and went for dinner. One problem we had not anticipated the dearth of dingies: between eight us we had one dingy with oars to take us from the moorings to dock. So we decided to use Prairie Gold as a ferry. This went well as we went to land. However, after dinner it was extremely dark and we had to navigate the mooring field in the dark to return everyone to their boat. It wasnt until the next morning that we realised how many mooring buoys there were.
Sailing back to Boston on Sunday was in record time. We were on a beam reach with 15-20kts of wind, averaging 7-7.5kts most of the way. We made it back to the marina in a little over 7 hours - not bad for a 50 mile trip. We were happy to have a dodger on Prairie Gold as it was hit by water many times. However, twice we did not escape. Phil was sitting on the high side and took a face and body full of water (thank goodness for foul weather gear) and later Yolande got covered head to toe while standing at the helm.
We had a great weekend, but realise it is probably our last overnight trip of the 2010 season.
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