This year we managed to achieve several new firsts – we entered
our first race on New Year’s day placing 6th out of 8. We competed in the Boston harbor Wednesday
evening race series and didn’t come last in our division. Two notable races
were the Round the Island Race starting in Edgartown, Martha’s vineyard and the
Boston Harbor Alliance Regatta.
The Martha’s vineyard race was a 56nm race and was such a
fun time with Joe, Morgan and myself participating. My most enjoyable part of
that race was a long several hour downwind spinnaker run from the NE tip of
Martha’s vineyard down to the Atlantic. Of
course in addition to the race was the overnight sail to get down there as well
as a very fast return sail taking just 14 hours. Since then we have remarked
several times that the bacon cheese burgers we BBQed while sailing down to Cape
Cod were the best we have eaten.
The Boston Harbor Alliance Regatta was delayed by a week due
to highwinds. Even when the race was started the winds were still good. Since
we have a cruising boat high winds favor us and we managed to win that race. Here
is an excerpt from the blog entry at the time:
“As we approached Red buoy #2P near Peddocks island we
decided to deploy the spinnaker. With 7 on board she went up flawlessly, and
quickly. Many jobs to be completed, attach the halyard, pull the halyard from
the mast, take up the slack in the cockpit, furl in the genoa, switch genoa for
spinnaker sheets (we have only one set of winches), raise the spinnaker
“condom”, and trim the sail.
We set course for green/red near Hospital Shoal then a
little more to port for green #7 daymark at the tip of Gallops. On this long
reach we were chasing down Atalanta, a Sabre ketch who had started six minutes
earlier than us. As we were approaching #7 we were able to block her wind and
cut inside between the day mark and Atalanta. We then turned to head up The
Narrows, with the spinnaker sailing 60 degrees off the apparent wind. We were
flying!! However, we couldn’t come more into the wind so we quickly dropped the
spinnaker and got out the genoa. Again the crew were fantastic. Joe and Morgan
on the deck were getting wet, but wrestled the spinnaker into the bag.”
During the course of the racing we have had 14 different
crew members join me with a range of experiences from novice to seasoned
sailor. And at the same time I have started as a novice racer (never competed
before as crew or skipper) and during the season I think I have improved slightly
to novice+ (still lots to learn on my part).
Joe always says “it’s always interesting when the spinnaker
goes up”, and he is right. We have given the spinnaker several baths even using
it as a sea anchor during a Wednesday evening race. Here is one of the
incidents from a previous blog entry:
“When
we rounded the windward mark the crew on deck were raising the spinnaker as we
were furling the genoa. We went too fast and should have left the genoa out a
little longer because the wind gusted inflated the spinnaker and pulled Joe two
feet off the deck while he was holding the halyard. The other crew member,
Morgan, helped out and got a line caught around his finger. We are playing an
interesting game of learning the limits. We found another one and will correct
it next time we race. Good news – both Morgan and Joe reported that a drink or
two fixed their injuries.”
In addition to the racing we managed to set a new record for
the greatest number of trips on Prairie Gold in a year – 94. In addition to the
racing we went cruising up into Maine including stops at the Isles of Shoals,
Portland, Boothbay, Camden, Rockland, Kennebunkport, Portsmouth.
Thanks to all who have joined us on our 2015 adventures and
we hope to see you in 2016.
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