Made it to Racine this afternoon. I was in a hurry, so I kept the motor running - with the genoa out. Of course, the trip started out with the usual wind games. Pull out the genoa - the wind dies. Roll up the genoa - the wind comes back. Hide and seek. I pulled it out a second time and the wind stayed that time. It was a great afternoon for a sail, but I wanted to get there quickly, and motor sailing provided a speed of 7.5 knots. The waves had built up to 3-4 feet, so it was a little rolley with the waves mostly from behind, with the occasional bigger waves pushing you solidly off course as the auto pilot struggled to keep the boat on course.

My brother, Mark, met me at the dock and helped me tie up. He is racing the Hook with his son, Mark. We went to dinner and then sat around on my boat talking about my trip and the things I had done to the boat. The weather for the race was a big topic. The GFS model used by NOAA said NE winds 20-30 and mentioned water spouts. So he put on a smaller head sail. But my Predict Wind was saying lighter winds from the south. Then he looked at the Mac Race weather forecast - south winds. The forecast from the different models keeps changing, so I’m not going nuts about it. We shall see what Saturday brings. All I know at this point is that it is raining now and the forecast for tomorrow made me decide to move the boat to Racine today instead of tomorrow.

You can track the race by going to racineyachtclub.org and clicking
Watch the Hook Race live

Tuesday I took the boat to Larsen Marine so they could replace my steaming light, which works sometimes, but seemed to quit permanently after I worked on it in St Augustine to make it work better. As is often the case when they work on this old boat, the boat wouldn’t allow them to do the work they intended that day, so they punted and instead took the lens off and cleaned the contacts. It was working and seemed solid ... until now. Back off again.