Longest Single Leg of my LIFE!

Yesterday was a beautiful day for sailing. It was blowing South again, oh say 10-20 but more in the 10-15 range. Ok, yes, there was some rain in the morning, in fact lots of rain. But it cleared off.

1:00 came around and I was ready to sail. So I rigged the boat with the old sail, not wanting to blow out the new one. And off I went. I didn't want to exhaust myslef on the long beat to the starting area so I depowered the boat and kept it flat. The puffs were up there, some were real challenging.

I sailed to the start to find I was alone. I sailed to the club, which was really good timing as I really had to go potty bad. Half an hour later 6 of us left the club to race. And it started raining. Now when I say rain, there is a drizzle, showers, rain, pouring, and call Noah you are going to need an arc. Well this was not quite epic flood rain, but it was enough that we could not see the marks.

But the wind was still up. So off we went. It took me a bit to realize the heal of the boat was the rain hitting it and not the wind. I was pinching and slow. I freed up the sail, bore off a bit and got it moving.

Emily made me some nice new tell-tales out of friendship bracelet stuff, something that is acroos between thread and yarn. Well, it soaked, drooped, and wrapped itself into a nice tight knot around the stays. No tell-tales. Rain on the water made wind spotting impossible. Let's say it was real interesting, but not fun.

I was near last place. But in preparation for the regatta lenght races in a couple weeks, this was a long course, probably 1.25 miles per leg, plenty of recovery time. I picked some shifts, squeezed the water out of the tell tales, and made my way up to second place behind Brent P (rapidly becoming a pain in my butt). The rain had let up or stopped. Downwind I held on, and closed some on Brent upwind. But he was covering me tightly and there was no passing. So I fell back to cover the remainder of the fleet.

The wind was dropping. Race 2 started in 5 mph or less. Finding wind was the challenge. Brent G got to the top mark first by 10 lengths over a tie between Steve, Brent P and myself. I rolled both around the mark but wanted to get left. I had to wait and follow Brent P, sailing through his lee and passing underneath. That was not an easy feat. The wind was way down. Sitting on the low side and trying to find the mark I realized it was WAAAAAY down the lake. Let's say 1.25 miles at 2 mph in miserable uncomfortable conditions was not fun.

At times it looked like I was closing on Brent G. But at the bottom mark he was still 10 lengths or so ahead. I had opened a gap on Steve A and Brent P. I split right of Brent G trying to find better wind. I did. Over the next 20 mminutes he worked the middle and I worked the right. At the finish, he won by about 10 lengths. We both had extended over the fleet though.

Thankfully we called off any further racing. Those 2 races were more racing that the prior week's 5 races.