Take the long way home
2003-05-07

I hate light air, I hate light air, I hate light air. Um, did I mention I hate light air? Well I do.. Blah

We started in drizzle, fog and 4 knots of true wind coming from the east. The good old Race Commitee will send us on a nice short course, get us in quick and off to the bar right? Right? Um, no... Course 7N, out to the light house and back. I politely ask them are they sure and am assured that they definately are serious. We are in for a LOOOOOONG night.

We banged the start perfectly by just tacking back and forth in the little breeze there was over by the commitee boat and were the only boat in the class that was even close to being on time. By the time we had reached C-5 we were several minutes ahead and gaining on the spinnaker boats in the class ahead of us.

We are only registered with the old #2 headsail in the spring (small and heavy). In the light stuff that's like going to a gun fight armed with a butter knife, but we managed to keep the tacks to a minimum and kept the boat moving all be it slowly in the right direction.

As I mentioned earlier, I hate light air, but it doesn't mean we aren't good at sailing in it. Some how when it gets drifty, I manage to turn up the concentration a few notches and we usually do very well. Last night was no exception.

By the time we reached the top mark, we were well embeded in the spinnaker fleet, dispite their 6 minute headstart and the 40 second per mile difference between the slowest boat in their class and us. We had over an hour on the second boat in our class.

Well if going uphill in 4 knots was painful, going downhill in the dying 2 knot breeze was down right ugly. We tried every trick in the book to keep the boat moving. Sometimes we were sucessful, sometimes not. The water was as still as could be. It was as quiet as I can ever remember on the boat. We could hear birds on the shore 1/2 a mile away and conversations from people we couldn't see. Weird.

We began to talk about food, bad jokes and food again. Yes shells are the best macaroni for macaroni and cheese. No, I do not like elbows. All the while we kept slowly chugging, while the breeze went from awful to nothing.

We were so far ahead of our class that we could no longer see their running lights. We were boat for boat ahead of a Beneteau 36.7 with a half oz chute up and making trees on him. Unfortunately the clock was ticking. We had until 9:00 to finish or there would be no official race.

With a mile to go we had almost an hour to make the finish line. My GPS said we weren't going to make it. By the time we reached half a mile, we were still showing an ETA of 9:04. Close but no cigar. At 1/4 of a mile it was 9:03. When the canelation horns finally sounded we were only 5 or 6 boat lenghts from the line. 3 hours of racing all for nothing.

The crew did a good job of getting the boat put away and we headed back to the dock, disapointed. We stayed at the Club way too late and now I'm functioning on 4 hours sleep. Not good. There may be a make up race, or maybe not. We'll see... For now all I really need is a nap. Happy Hump day!

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