Another busy weekend, both sailing and with friends.
Friday started out, with our Friday night race. This time the dynamic duo of Sylvia and Synthia came out to crew. A beautiful evening of short sleave sailing in the Estuary. We had a dodgy start, but after going around we recovered and rounded the top mark in the top three. The girls did an excellent job crewing and we were soon in the front of the fleet. We played it conservative the rest of the way and finished up with a nice 'gun' at the finish. Smiles all around. The girls quickly signed up for another Friday, they must have enjoyed the ride :)
Saturday was a different type of sailing. Pretty windy in the central bay. Greg Nelsen came out to race with me for this race. We chose to just do the race double handed even though it is a fully crewed race. It was great conditions for our boat, nice flat water due to the flood and a 20 to 25 knot breeze. This time we both learned the courses ahead of time (didn't want a repeat of the last race). We were the first start and positioned ourselves in the middle of the line with plenty of room to leeward. The Flying Tiger had a good start crossing the fleet on port, but by the time we converged again we were just in front of them. We mostly loosely covered the fleet and were running a pretty good leg, great speed and decent pointing, with Greg navigating and calling tactics. Then a tanker came up the course which forced us to stay on the wrong side of the course. By the time we got back to fleet we had lost a couple hundred yards and we were back in chasing mode. It was a long upwind leg so we had time to catch up with some of the competition. At the top mark there was some confusion, some boats headed to the 'Little Harding' buoy as opposed to 'Harding' buoy as called out on the course. We double checked and made it to the right mark. Kite up and we were off to the races. We were screaming downwind, water everywhere, I think this is the fastest the boat has gone. But the GPS battery ran out, so don't know how fast we got to go, but I would guess in the 16 - 18 knot range on the peaks. I lost my footing on one of the puffs as the boat accelerated and we rounded up into a broach. Don't broach often on this boat, but it was a reminder that there is little room for a mistake. The broach allowed some of the other fast boats to catch up and both the Antrim27 and the Henderson30 got ahead of us. We couldn't hold the angle to the leeward mark behind Angel Island, so we dropped the kite early and white sailed reach to the mark. The Antrim which was ahead at this time, kept on going downwind, seemly to another mark and loosing its lead. We rounded just behind the Henderson30.
Back upwind, this time to 'Little Harding'. We rounded the windward mark just ahead of the Henderson, but got our spinnaker up faster than they did and we were off again. A nice long run all the way down the Berkley in heavy air. Another small wipeout, this time we recovered more quickly and rounded the leeward mark well ahead of the competition. We had a close reach to the mark to the finish. We were the first boat to finish in our class. Not a bad day.
Saturday night, I met Paula at Nima and Lisa's for dinner. Zoya is growing quickly and has a great little personality. Nima put up a really nice dinner and Lisa baked us a scramble from fresh plums from their backyard tree. Nice....
Sunday morning had us back at Berkeley for brunch with Lorenzo, Jo Ann and Luca.
Now we are home resting. Paula has an early morning flight to Iowa tomorrow and I'll be following on Thursday. Should be an interesting weekend, stay tuned...
Friday started out, with our Friday night race. This time the dynamic duo of Sylvia and Synthia came out to crew. A beautiful evening of short sleave sailing in the Estuary. We had a dodgy start, but after going around we recovered and rounded the top mark in the top three. The girls did an excellent job crewing and we were soon in the front of the fleet. We played it conservative the rest of the way and finished up with a nice 'gun' at the finish. Smiles all around. The girls quickly signed up for another Friday, they must have enjoyed the ride :)
Saturday was a different type of sailing. Pretty windy in the central bay. Greg Nelsen came out to race with me for this race. We chose to just do the race double handed even though it is a fully crewed race. It was great conditions for our boat, nice flat water due to the flood and a 20 to 25 knot breeze. This time we both learned the courses ahead of time (didn't want a repeat of the last race). We were the first start and positioned ourselves in the middle of the line with plenty of room to leeward. The Flying Tiger had a good start crossing the fleet on port, but by the time we converged again we were just in front of them. We mostly loosely covered the fleet and were running a pretty good leg, great speed and decent pointing, with Greg navigating and calling tactics. Then a tanker came up the course which forced us to stay on the wrong side of the course. By the time we got back to fleet we had lost a couple hundred yards and we were back in chasing mode. It was a long upwind leg so we had time to catch up with some of the competition. At the top mark there was some confusion, some boats headed to the 'Little Harding' buoy as opposed to 'Harding' buoy as called out on the course. We double checked and made it to the right mark. Kite up and we were off to the races. We were screaming downwind, water everywhere, I think this is the fastest the boat has gone. But the GPS battery ran out, so don't know how fast we got to go, but I would guess in the 16 - 18 knot range on the peaks. I lost my footing on one of the puffs as the boat accelerated and we rounded up into a broach. Don't broach often on this boat, but it was a reminder that there is little room for a mistake. The broach allowed some of the other fast boats to catch up and both the Antrim27 and the Henderson30 got ahead of us. We couldn't hold the angle to the leeward mark behind Angel Island, so we dropped the kite early and white sailed reach to the mark. The Antrim which was ahead at this time, kept on going downwind, seemly to another mark and loosing its lead. We rounded just behind the Henderson30.
Back upwind, this time to 'Little Harding'. We rounded the windward mark just ahead of the Henderson, but got our spinnaker up faster than they did and we were off again. A nice long run all the way down the Berkley in heavy air. Another small wipeout, this time we recovered more quickly and rounded the leeward mark well ahead of the competition. We had a close reach to the mark to the finish. We were the first boat to finish in our class. Not a bad day.
Saturday night, I met Paula at Nima and Lisa's for dinner. Zoya is growing quickly and has a great little personality. Nima put up a really nice dinner and Lisa baked us a scramble from fresh plums from their backyard tree. Nice....
Sunday morning had us back at Berkeley for brunch with Lorenzo, Jo Ann and Luca.
Now we are home resting. Paula has an early morning flight to Iowa tomorrow and I'll be following on Thursday. Should be an interesting weekend, stay tuned...
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