Besides a sailing holiday, Summer Sailstice is the name of our Ranger 33 and we just did the first evening race of the season. It was a perfect start to a Friday night race season - gentle breeze, warm air, lots of sun. But we all know that great starts don't always lead to great finishes. At starting time the breeze on the line had fizzled to a couple of knots if we were lucky and the adverse, flood current out on the course was probably exceeding wind speed. This sets up the classic CYC dilemna - do you sail out into the current looking for wind or go up into Belvedere Cove for tide releif.
The crew debated while the skipper ignored all advice and sailed up into the cove. It looked brilliant for a while, then bad, then brilliant, then bad - we're not sure where we lost touch with the leaders (at one point we thought that might be us) but after a while it was clear we were out of touch. Time for one of those 'beer cans'.
We finally broke free of the cove, sailed into some breeze and started enjoying a brisk crossing to one of our well-know marks 'Little Harding'. The fast flood made 'Little Harding' a truly upriver mark, it was a long beat up there and by the time we arrived what would have been a casual rounding due to the lack of nearby competitors became a tacking duel with a stationary object - the mark. It appeared to be going to weather faster than we were. We eventually rounded and started zipping home with both wind and current at our backs. Unfortunately the wind was fading with the light and as we approached the finish line it was clear both light and wind would be gone.
It's always a let down not to finish but a DNF is better than a DNS(did not sail). We did manage to sail longer by spending more time on course than many of our competitors so we chose to accept that as a token victory - more time sailing. The beer on the boat is as good as the beer at the bar and the laughs on the boat are as good as the laughs ashore.
We'll be missing next week as we work at Strictly Sail Pacific but after that we should be there every Friday night and only hope to improve. The good news for us was that the whole class finished after the time limit so we were all scored DNF. That means after our first race of the season we're tied for first!
Mitch calls the shots.
Hank Easom's 8 meter 'Yucca' heading for home
We're out maximizing our sailing time. Do you think we'll finish before the 15 minutes after sunset time limit?