Not last!

Wednesday evening was our first evening race for the 2016 season. We have not yet set a goal for the year but if its not to be last in every race then we accomplished that last night. Looking across the three divisions on corrected time we came second to last. Not last!

The evening was a fun time of peculiar wind shifts with changes in wind speeds from 3-20kts. Typical Boston inner harbor sailing conditions. The course was N2 (beneath) and we made a good start. The first upwind leg we sailed pretty well. But when we came downwind we had a spinnaker twist that lasted for oh so long. It was the first time that this crew had launched from the bow cabin with the genoa still up and lines got twisted. We probably lost several minutes in this part of the ride.

However, with three different race starts, and thus some faster boats starting up to 12 minutes behind us we were still in the mix of boats for quite a while in the race. 

The second upwind leg was sailed pretty well, and the final downwind deployment of the spinnaker was much better. We did finish over the line in last place in real time, but on handicap adjusted time we did beat one boat!

Its interesting to look at the handicap times across the three divisions and one can see a couple of clusters of boats after handicap adjustment – it will be interesting to see over time during the season whether we improve our skills and move forward in ranking or whether we will just stay at the back.  Regardless, it was a great evening on the water.

Coming into the race we considered this a training session for Figawi – but more about that in another post.

Skipper: Phil

Crew: Yolande, Joe, Dan and Benson.