Wednesday night races

Prairie Gold has entered the Constitution Yacht Club Wednesday night races! Buoyed by our success in the New Year’s day race I decided to give the Wednesday evening races a go. We have now entered two races and have learned that the winds are really blowing in May 2015.

Our first race was quite something. Winds were gusting over 30kts apparent as we were lining up for the start. We realized that although we are a cruising boat, our furling headsail and main was a great advantage. The racing boats had no option to change sails nor to reef, but we did. About half of the boats didn’t even try spinnakers, ourselves included. And for us that was good. We started upwind with deeply reefed main and reefed 135 genoa. After several tacks we rounded the windward mark and then sailed butterfly downwind. Of course, unlike other boats we could now sail with full 135 genoa and main.

But back to the start – In January on New Years day I screwed up the start. Tonight we nailed it – well nearly. We were third over the start line and at top speed. We tacked up wind and had many rail dippers. It was fun to tack and use starboard tack to block other boats out. Now I say it as fun to tack, but the crew were making comments about not needing to go to the gym tomorrow.

Of course we finished last – our PHRF rating is so far worse than the other boats. But we only finished last by a whisker - well we finished last.  Can’t wait to see what our adjusted time is.

But unfortunately there was drama on the high seas. One boat dismasted! Fortunately, no one was injured. Another boat lost her sheets, they snapped in the high winds. But we finished! I guess we achieved our objective not to be last in all races.  The racing boat Shout nearly lost two of their crew overboard. They had their spinnaker out and nearly broached sending crew towards the harbor waters.

In our second race, last night, there was an element of nervousness on the docks because the winds were pounding again. At the startline everyone called in to the race committee boat that they would sail without spinnaker. We counted down to the start of the race and we crossed the starting line first. That was our first victory.

Quickly we were being caught by faster boats but for a while we were holding our own given our slower boat speed. The finish was quite exhilarating since the racing boat Eagle was hunting us down and as we turned the last mark to head up wind to the finish line she came to our side. We trimmed and got every 100^th of a knot out of Prairie Gold that we could. We finished together. One of our crew suggested that we should have extended our bowsprit so that we would have crossed the line before Eagle. (I didn't mention that Eagle started behind us in a different class of boat. So although we finished together she got around the course in a shorter time. But let's wait for the handicap adjusted times.)

It turned out that the winds died down and were very patchy in the evening. Maybe next time we will take our assym spinnaker out.