We've had a good couple of months since the last post. Having this blog separate from the TeamSnap page is not convenient.

The big event for us was obviously our second place finish in Gov Cup. This was a difficult wet race, but we finished at 5 AM, in the dark, just minutes behind our favorite nemesis, Cookie, but corrected over them by several minutes. We could not prevail over Actaea, but we were close. It was a good finish for Gitana and a big effort by the crew.

Screwpile was also a lot fun. We had our moments and made some improvements, but we need some improvements in upwind boat speed to make that difficult regatta work for us.

Our Wednesday Night Series races have gotten much more consistent. We had a number of 1st place finishes and even our bad races were pretty good. Last Wednesday was an especially notable race with Tim and Meg from Leap Frog sailing Carolina Blue. We had a downwind start and managed to sneak around the first mark ahead of the fleet as we got inside position on Junkanoo. But Carolina Blue worked hard to get around us to windward and eventually did, I think due to a steering lapse on the part of Gitana's driver. But our crew work was outstanding and we were very close to taking that race.

Finally it occurred to me, after the sad demise of the Telltale website that served us so well as both a blog and sign up tool, that we could link a blog to our teamsnap sign up page. I think this will work. So the blog misses entries about our first series of Wednesday night races this year (2nd) and nothing about the AYC Overnight or Miles River (2nd) or the Women's Regatta, but it'll have everything else.

On Sunday I spent most of the afternoon bleeding the air out of the fuel line. This was necessary because we ran out of fuel just before the start on Wednesday. Eventually sailing with only 3 gallons of fuel will catch up to you. Bleeding the old Westerbeke is a chore. Remind me not to run out of fuel again, even if it does force us to sail home.

I also added the new vang that Trevor Harney rigged for us. It'll need a few adjustments, but it will add another dimension to our trimming ability. The new Lewmar 48 winches are not yet installed and the autopilot is still attached, but maybe on Saturday.