First Day of Racing

The first day of races has ended. I am still alive (though I think Mark was trying to dunk us--by the way, the seat belt works great!) Our first start was awful. Then again, no one was on-line at the start. We were at least 3 boats behind. Nevertheless we were staying with pack when we headed a nice size wave and there was the sound of metal crashing. Mark's seat broke. Well, at least the mechanism that keeps his seat from moving forward and back. The concern was Mark slamming his legs against my seat and say, breaking his legs again. I tried to reach around and hold him back by pushing against his leg so it wouldn't slam forward. Needless to say, we did the best we could considering our circumstances. Winds were underestimated to be 7 knots but were more like 12 to 14 knots.

Kira came aboard after the end of the first race, and she tied his seat to the back of the boat. This reduced the movement to make it safe enough to do the next race. Our second start was much better--and we stuck with 2 other boats for some time. We seemed to struggle with getting the higher angles and tacking seemed slow. Steering and heading up (getting the closest angle to the wind) was just not happening. The second race was shortened because a huge bank of fog was moving in very quickly. The good side to today: we stayed close to the pack and didn't finish far behind the last boat.

Needless to say, we were last in both races. End of day 1. As with any race or activity, the goal is to improve upon areas of weakness. We talked a lot about tactics, sail trimming, and steering. Tomorrow is to be cooler temps. with 10+ mph winds. Tonight it is ibuprofen and lights out at 10:00. Our first race is 10:30am which means an early wake up and at the docks by 9:00am. Check the Sail Newport site for results and photos. Apparently there is no venue planned for video taping the races. Thanks for thinking of us!

Amy