What a Ride!

Our first day out on the water this year was an interesting trip! The winds were down to less than 3 knots before the races could get under way and then slowly built to about 15 knots at one point. It was good practice to have us go through all the gears as pressure built up.

The racing was interesting. Good starting lines, but there was a pesky ship in the starboard layline for the windward mark. Not to mention that there was a fishing tournament on the Bay - fishermen were all over the course with trolling boards out. We did our best to miss the fishers, but you know, when you have 50 sailboats coming at you, you might find fishing less complicated elsewhere. Always exciting to have an obstacle course, though.

Our races went well. We had good starts with speed hitting the line. We had great windward legs managing to catch shifts and point a little better than our competition. On our second windward leg of the first race, we noticed an offset mark. Not good. We didn't see it the first time up, but it must have been there. Fortunately, no one else saw it the first time up and only us two leaders saw it the second time. No one protested, so I guess it's all a wash now.

Off wind, we couldn't seem to get our speed up and that hurt. The Midshipmen were out in force to represent the Academy, so they could pounce on us just when we were most vulnerable. Navy did quite well. They didn't get distracted racing each other and they able to lay in wait for our errors.

The results are in. In the end, we missed 1st place by 15 seconds (corrected) in the first race and 22 seconds (corrected) in the second. Not too bad for a bunch of old people who haven't raced in 6 months. We did take the gun for both races which is some consolation. We finished 2-3 for a 3rd over-all.

NavySports is telling a different and bigger story. They say that they fielded 5 boats who all finished in the top 7. While technically true, it's misleading since there were two classes and none with more than 8 boats. My Mom could have come out in an A0 boat and gotten 7th place.

Navy did the job, though. Jason Mazzoni and his crew on Integrity did an excellent job. We're keeping an eye on them from now on.