Today was the big race with 22 boats signed up. Our chief competitor was Scout, a sistership to Tapatai but newer with a taller mast and deeper keel. So I decided that a 6 second a mile difference would be in order so Scout would give us 6 seconds a mile over the 8 mile course or 48 seconds for the race. The forecast was for light winds around 5 knots which is not good for us.

My crew was Ian and Ellen from Kasasa, Bill and Sue Houlihan from Sun Baby Too and Penny and me. Penny and Ian worked the foredeck and Bill and Sue were jib trimmers and Ellen trimmed the main. We were also trying out our new bowsprit that I had made from a piece of 3" Stainless Steel tube with the appropriate fittings welded on. This extended beyond the bow about 1.5 feet and is to keep the asymmetrical spinnaker away from the bow pulpit and damaging it.

We left the dock at 9:15 for the 8 mile run out the channel to the starting line. There was very little wind for the 11:00 start and the line was favored towards shore which took a brave soul to go over too close. We were at that end of the line and then tacked over to Starboard and got a good start in the middle of the line and went left. In doing so and being on the starboard right of way tack, we made a few boats duck our stern, one so close I reached out and touched their anchor. A bunch of boats went up the beach and one hit a rock but got off. It didn't look particularly good for us going out to left field but we saw some more wind there and it paid off ok. We got to the weather mark in 4th position and got a good rounding and set the spinnaker for the 4 mile run to the old anchored tuna boat. We had good speed and caught Scout as she rounded ahead. The next leg was going to be a jib reach and we took down the spinnaker and unfurled the jib and gybed around the mark and took off for the finish line. By this time we had at least 10 knots of wind so we were flying along at 7.8 knots and staying with Scout. They were 3rd across the finish line and we were 45 seconds behind them so we may have beat them by 3 seconds but we will have to wait until the race committee posts the official times, so stay tuned.

The day was perfect and it was good to get the boat out of the dock and do some sailing with good friends. We had a leisurely sail back to the slip and put the boat away. After a brief nap Penny and I went over to La Costa, unofficial race headquarters to swap lies with the others and have a glass of wine, margarita or a beer or three. Penny will follow up on that aspect.

Update, it seems that the commitee boats clock runs faster than ours so it was 1 minute 5 seconds between us and Scout so she beat us by 14 seconds. Good racing! We'll get her next time.