Two weeks ago yesterday, the winds were Force 5. We took Surprise out and tried to sail around. It was just no fun. so we started and sailed home. We had eight boats out, and four retired after the start. I gotta hand it to the folks who went out and raced the whole thing. I took my sails to Cameron to have them looked over. The boltrope on the main was shrunk, so they fixed that.
We corrected to 11 seconds ahead the Flying Junior and two minutes ahead of the Coronado-15. On the first downwind run, we got the spinnaker up on starboard tack with Thistle Gone Pecan to leeward. He began luffing and I responded. The Lido-14 was to windward of me, and we luffed them. "Two boats to Leeward" I recall hailing - unnecessarily...
I really wanted that Thistle to gybe, but he wouldn't for what seemed the longest time. Finally he went, and we gybed immediately. We were able to keep up with the Thistle pretty well, as well as the Vanguard-15 downwind, but he was faster upwind, as he should be. The north wind made it interesting. There is a condo complex nearby with a marina, and the wind funneling down that marina made it very interesting. We'd get blasts of wind. It would be fun to ride that wind.
Posted by Bob at May 22, 2003 10:52 AM