Signing off for 2007

This is my last post for 2007, and I leave you with one of my favorite photos of the year. I haven't sailed at all since the BVIs, because there's not enough wind on the bay at this time of year. So I have no new sailing adventures to report.

I'd summarize 2007 as chock full of fun and exciting sailing experiences, quite a bit of travel, some truly great times with friends, eight great months of working at Google, and four very eventful months off from work. It was a year of much personal growth for me, and for that I'm thankful. I've met a lot of wonderful people, both in the sailing community and elsewhere, and many of them have become treasured friends... another thing for which I'm very thankful. (You know who you are!) I also had some experiences that were not so pleasant and some real struggles, but each of those experiences was a growth opportunity for me as well.

If you've been reading my blog regularly this year, I thank you for your time and support and hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Be sure to check back to read about my sailing adventures in 2008!

Happy new year and fair winds to you and yours!

cj

Sailing in the BVIs

I spent 11 days in the British Virgin Islands at the beginning of December, nine of them living on a 40' Beneteau with three people I hardly knew. We were part of a 14-boat flotilla organized by the ASA. Six of the boats, including mine, were occupied by people from my sailing club, Spinnaker Sailing.

My purpose in going on this trip was to do a lot of sailing and get my bareboat certification. What I didn't realize is that "cruising" in the BVIs means a lot of partying and not as much emphasis on sailing as I would have liked. Live and learn...

Needless to say, the trip was ok but not my cup of tea (since I don't drink much). We had only two days of real sailing (up to Anegada and back the next day) and motored around most of the rest of the time. We put up the sails for an hour or two here and there, but we always had the motor on.

So I don't have much to say about this trip, except that I did learn what it's like to live on a boat and got lots of practice mooring and anchoring, since we made two stops most days. Most of the islands looked about the same to me... just a different beach bar at each stop. The two stops I liked the most were The Baths on Virgin Gorda and Loblolly Bay on the north side of Anegada.

Some pictures are available on my Picasa page, and a couple of videos are available on YouTube: Anegada, one of my favorite spots, and Floating Bar, which is indicative of how my boat mates spent most of their days.

Westpoint Marina and Grooves in the Muck

The day after Thanksgiving, Dave and I took out a Merit for a few hours of peace and quiet out on the water. We knew the wind was light, but we hoped for a few windy spots on the bay... and did actually get some real sailing in for a while.

We sailed out of the slip in 0 knots. That's right... no wind, both sails up, no motor. Dave pushed us off the dock and then almost fell out of the boat as he helped us avoid hitting the new Cal 24 parked at the end of the fairway, directly behind us as I backed out. Off we went at about 1/10 knot out of the marina. It took about an hour for us to get out into the main channel—200 yards or so—at which point, Dave decided to start the engine. I had just finished eating my lunch and didn't have a problem drifting around the basin, but when Dave wants to use the engine, you know there's no wind at all! ☺

After Dave started the engine, I took the helm and motored us up the channel, so Dave could eat his lunch. We'd sailed past the Westpoint Slough several times and noticed the new channel markers a few weeks ago. Then our friend Mike told us he'd gone down there one day to check out the new Westpoint Marina being build, so we ventured in. Dave had been hiking down there before they flooded the basin, but he hadn't seen the docks in the water yet. I'd never been down that way, so it was something new to do on a light wind day.

The slough is narrow, and it was nearing low tide, so we stayed right in the middle to avoid going aground. We were still motoring, so we had plenty of control. Dave took the helm part way in so I could shoot some pictures. This is going to be a beautiful marina!

After exploring the marina, we headed back to the main channel and out to the bay. The wind had picked up by that time, so we shut down the engine and sailed. Actually, we got some pretty good wind... 8-10 knots is my guess. We were actually heeling for a while, so we were having fun. Still, we only had about 3-1/2 hours out there, so we made it as far as marker 12, rounded it, and headed back.

By the time we got to the channel, the wind had died down a bit, but we kept sailing. The tide was so low by this time that we could see more of the exposed mud and muck than I've ever seen before. Dave pointed out that the grooves in the muck are from boats going aground, so I shot a bunch of pictures of the keel and engine grooves. For more pics of the Westpoint Marina and grooves in the muck, check out my Picasa web album!

About half way down the channel, I finally convinced Dave that we were going backwards, so he fired up the engine again and took us in. We were going so slowly that we were able to flake the main, put the cover on, and get the boat almost completely buttoned up before we ever hit the dock. The sun was setting as we returned to the dock... a beautiful ending to a lovely day.

Took My Kids Sailing

The day before Thanksgiving, my kids were all in town. So we decided that was a good opportunity to go sailing. I'm not ready for Finn to come along yet. He's 2 now, but he can't sit still, and there's really no way to strap him down in a Merit. So we left Emily home with Finn, and she made all the desserts for Thanksgiving.

Dan, Jen, and Matt all came along. None of them knew how to sail, although Dan has some experience with lasers and cats, and Matt has lots of fishing/motor boat experience. They all picked it up pretty quickly, though, and had lots of questions... most of which I could answer... some of which I referred them to Dave at dinner that night.

We headed out toward the bridge with about 5-8 knots of wind. They got pretty good at tacking, and we even went wing-and-wing on the downwind return. The day was relatively uneventful except for me skippering with a boat full of newbies for the first time. We all had a lot of fun, though, and they all thanked me for the experience. I think maybe they'll go out sailing with me again sometime... I hope so, anyway!

More pics of this day and Thanksgiving at my house are in my Picasa web album!

Redwood Cup Race

Yesterday was the Redwood Cup Race, hosted by Sequoia Yacht Club. I was invited to sail on Melilani, Rich Butts's J105, a beautiful 32' racing boat. Stan was the skipper, Alex the tactician, and Paul, Niko, and I crewed. Rich had elbow surgery a few weeks ago, so he just came along for the ride.

We all arrived at the boat around 11am and took the next hour or so to rig it and practice spinnaker handling at the dock. We left around 12:45pm for the starting line (marker 20 in the channel) and got a chance to practice raising and dousing the spinnaker once and then got ready for the start.

We made a good start, crossing the line just after the official start time. The race was relatively uneventful... light wind at first, picking up about mid-afternoon. Honestly, I don't have a good sense of which boats were ahead of us, behind us, who we passed at what point, or anything, because I was looking at the telltales on the jib almost the whole time, trying to get that sail trim just right!

As soon as we rounded the mark, marker 12, we raised the spinnaker. The set was good, and we were able to furl the jib, which is a whole heck of a lot easier than on Smokin J, where we have to lower it and try to bunch it up in the bow pulpit and keep it out of the way of the spinnaker trimmer and out of the water.

Sailing down to marker 2 was fast and easy. We were getting up to 13 knots of wind at that point and moving at 5-7 knots. Stan turned into the channel at marker 3, and Niko and I did a perfect gybe (according to Alex). Yeah!

We were in the last leg of the race, sailing down the channel, when all of a sudden the spinnaker tack let go, and the leading edge of the chute was flapping in the breeze. At Rich's and Alex's instructions, Niko tried to lower the sock to douse the chute, but the sock lines were fouled, and he couldn't get it down. Alex handed me the spinnaker sheet and I took over trimming as he went up on the foredeck to help Niko. At some point, someone raised the jib. I was so focused on keeping the spinnaker out of the water that I didn't even notice who did that!

Alex and Niko brought the spinnaker all the way to the stern to get it around the jib and into the boat. But when they got to the stern, they realized that the sock line was free, so they had to bring it all the way back to the foredeck, and then they were able to douse it and lower it safely into the hatch. Phew! That was exciting!

While all this was happening, Alex kept telling Stan to keep sailing the boat, which he did, so we didn't lose any ground in the race during all that activity.

Later, when I asked Alex to explain what had happened, he said not to worry about it... that this sort of thing happens all the time and that since nothing broke and no one was hurt, it was no big deal. Ok then.

By the time we got the spinnaker safely down below and returned to our regularly scheduled roles, we were close to the finish line. We finished the race in the fourth position. Thanks to Stan for inviting me to crew for him, to Rich for having me on his boat, to Alex for always helping me improve my sailing skills, and to Paul and Niko for being such supportive crew members. It was another great day out on the bay!

Sausalito and Jack London Square

Yesterday, I went sailing with Emily and Amy out of Sausalito again, and this time I brought my friend, Sandi, and Amy brought her boyfriend, Sergei. It was a really fun group, and we had wind for a change... yeah!!!

Sandi and I were a little late arriving, and the others had the boat (the C&C 32 again) all ready to go when we got there, so we hopped on and left right away. After motoring part way out of the Sausalito harbor, we set the sails and caught a few knots of wind.

Amy and Sergei are going to BVI for a week on Monday and chartering a 40-foot sailboat by themselves. Amy has BCC certification and not much experience, and this was Sergei's first time on a sailboat, so they're a little nervous about this adventure. The good news is that Sergei has spent a lot of time on motor boats and is very mechanically inclined, so he was interested in learning and picked things up pretty quickly. It was fun teaching him how to sail and showing them both little tricks I've picked up along the way. They both seemed very grateful for my help.

Our plan was to head over to the Oakland Estuary, tie up at the guest dock at Jack London Square, and have lunch at Scott's Seafood. The fog was really thick in places and kept moving around the bay. At one point, we couldn't see the Bay Bridge or the city. A few minutes later, we could see the city but nothing in the east bay. We continued to sail downwind, though, through the fog at about 4-5 knots. We actually went through the fog bank that was by then hanging in the slot and came out into bright, warm sunshine on the other side. Now we could see the Bay Bridge perfectly but could no longer see anything north of the bridge. It was quite beautiful and eerie at the same time.

We decided to sail through the western span of the Bay Bridge, so we could see the damage done last week by the tanker that hit the bridge piling in the fog. It was awesome!

After consulting a chart, we found our way into the estuary and sailed past the enormous container ships being loaded with cargo. The wind died down quite a bit, so we decided to motor the rest of the way to our lunch destination. I wanted some experience docking a boat with a wheel and an inboard diesel engine, so I docked it first at a dock that turned out not to be a guest dock and then moved it to a guest dock. It was good experience for me, and I did ok the first time and really well the second time.

Lunch at Scott's was excellent! We all really got to know each other better over lunch and did a bunch of networking, email exchange, etc.

After lunch, we started beating upwind, but it was slow going, and Emily got concerned about getting the boat back on time. So we motored the rest of the way out of the estuary and then caught some really good wind (maybe 12-15 knots!) and sailed the rest of the way to Sausalito harbor. As we were approaching the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, which made a really nice picture.

Once we were in the wind shadow of the hills, we lost the wind again, so we motored back to the marina. Emily agreed to let me drive the boat into the slip, which went very well. There was some concern that I was too close to the boats across from our slip, but I didn't hit anything and got it in in one try, so I was pleased.

All in all, it was a great day of sailing!

Sailing on Alex's Boat with No Wind

Sandi and I were going to go kayaking in Monterey on Saturday for a change of pace. Then we decided to see if Norbert wanted to sail (sailing addicts that we are!). He did, so we reserved a Merit and planned to go to Coyote Point. Then Friday night, I got email from Alex asking a bunch of people if anyone wanted to sail on his boat Saturday afternoon. I did, so I asked if Sandi and Norbert could come along, and we shifted our plans to the bigger boat, bigger group of people, and the potential to fly the spinnaker and learn new things.

Alex's crew was Monica, Michael, Alex Eiser (referred to as Eiser to keep the Alexes straight), Norbert, Sandi, and me. After removing all the covers, washing down the foredeck, and raising and furling the jib, we finally got underway around 1pm. Alex motored out of Bair Island Marina just before low tide and managed to go aground in the narrow channel just outside the marina. I was glad it wasn't me at the helm (that time, at least—read on)! It took a while to get unstuck, but we did and then continued motoring out to the bay.

When we got out in the middle of the bay, it was dead low tide, and there was no wind at all. I'm not saying it was only 5 knots or something. Literally, the wind meter said "0" and then "---"! We sat there drifting with no sails up for quite a while... ate lunch... some had a beer or a glass of wine.

We finally noticed a little wind up toward the San Mateo Bridge, so we motored up that way, put up the sails, I took the helm, and we actually got to "beat upwind" and under the bridge in about 2-3 knots. As usual, there was a little more wind north of the bridge... maybe about 4 knots. So we turned around, headed downwind, and raised the spinnaker, but we were barely able to keep it flying. If I fell off even a little bit, the spinnaker started to collapse.

Shortly after we got south of the bridge, with me focusing intently on keeping the spinnaker flying, I took my eyes off the depth meter for a second, and we went aground... again. This time it wasn't so bad. Alex motored us off in a few minutes, and then I took back the helm and focused on getting us into deeper water. I guess I'm not used to a boat with such a big draft. I know I've sailed Merit 25s in that part of the bay before... maybe not at dead low tide, though.

Anyway, after a while, Norbert took over the helm, and I took over the main. We sailed back to the channel, gybing the spinnaker 5-6 times. Alex commented that we'd gybed it more times that day than he'd done in all the time he's owned the boat.

Just as we were really getting the hang of it, Alex asked Monica to trim the spinnaker. She was pulling on the sheet but getting nowhere, so I offered to grind for her. I started grinding when suddenly I heard a snap, and the spinnaker went flying (not in a good way). We knew that the aft block through which the spinnaker sheet was threaded was twisted around and unable to pivot with the angle of the sheet. What we didn't realize was that the metal edge of the block was fraying the sheet and, eventually, it cut it all the way through. Ugh... the second snafu of the day that I felt I had caused. Alex was nice about it, though, and we were able to pull in the spinnaker before it hit the water... and no one was hurt, so that was good.

After that, we were basically back to the channel, so we unfurled the jib and sailed as far as we could and then just motored the rest of the way in. All in all, it was a really nice day... warm, sunny, and relaxing. Thanks for a fun afternoon, Alex!

For more pictures from that day, check out my Picasa web album!

Mid-Bay Crew Transfer!

Kerry organized a group of six of us to sail together on Sunday. So we got two Merits—Sandi, Steve, and Aña (Steve's daughter) on one and Kerry, Norbert, and me on the other. We all sailed out the channel more or less together around noon. We were trying to race, but Steve's boat was trailing us by longer and longer distances, so we just kept going.

As we sailed out the channel, we saw a tug boat towing in a small plane. That's right, a v-tail Bonanza! According to a local news report, a father and son had taken off from San Carlos Airport (SQL) the day before, had engine trouble, and ditched just south of the San Mateo Bridge. After the plane had sunk, they swam to shore unharmed.

Once we got out of the channel, we headed out to the wreck, since Kerry had never been there. Around 3pm, Sandi called and said that Steve and Aña wanted to head back in and that she'd like to transfer to our boat. None of us had ever done a boat-to-boat crew transfer before, but Kerry led us through it with ease.

First, both boats attached the fenders to the sides we planned on Sandi disembarking/boarding, and we furled the jibs to get them out of the way. Then Norbert and I attached the bow and stern lines, so we could throw them to Steve. When we got close enough, Norbert threw the bow line to Sandi, who wrapped it around the lifeline on the bow of Steve's boat and threw the end back to Norbert. This way, we were connected, but Steve didn't have to climb up on the foredeck to detach the line after the transfer was complete. I threw the stern line to Steve in the cockpit, but it came off the stern hitch just as I threw it, so that did no good at all! It didn't matter, though, because Sandi basically just stepped over onto our boat, gear bag and all, without missing a beat. It happened so fast that I actually missed the photo op! I did get one of her posing afterwards, though!

Soon after the mid-bay crew transfer, we had an accidental gybe. Norbert was at the helm, but he looked away for a moment to show Kerry a knot, and boom (literally)! When the boom started to come over, Kerry noticed it and warned Sandi soon enough for her to duck. I was on the foredeck, and by the time I noticed the boom coming over, Norbert was already making a correction. We were back on course in no time.

After that, the wind was still pretty light (under 8 knots, I'd say) but it was a gorgeous day and we had a couple more hours to play, so we decided to head for the S marker. Just then, we saw Dave's boat. He was out with a class, so we headed over toward him. When we got close enough, we challenged him to race us to S, but he said he needed to head back into the channel and invited us to race him back to the marina. We weren't ready to head in yet, though, so we headed over to S by ourselves.

After finding S without a problem, we decided to try to find X. It was easier than usual to see the racing markers with no waves, but it took a while to get close to it. By the time we got close enough to see X, it was after 4pm, and we decided to head back in.

By then, the wind had all but died. We were getting about 1-3 knots. So we begrudgingly started the engine and became a stinkpot for a few minutes. We quickly passed marker 12, and by the time we got into the channel, the wind had come up a bit. So we sailed down the channel and back into the marina.

It's always something new when I go out sailing with my friends! The mid-bay crew transfer was really fun, thanks to all who participated!

More pictures are on Picasa.

Sailing Under the Dumbarton Bridge

Dave and I got to Spinnaker around noon on Saturday and took out M4. We weren't sure where we'd go and had no idea if we'd have enough wind to get out of the south bay. We had a flood tide until about 2pm, though, so we decided it was a good day to head south toward the Dumbarton Bridge. The flood on the way there and ebb on the way back would push us in the right direction if there wasn't enough wind.

It took us forever to get out of the channel. We must have tacked 20-30 times in extremely light wind... maybe 3 knots. By the time we got out of the channel, the wind was starting to pick up, and we headed southeast with the wind and tide.

We went under the bridge around 3pm—my fifth of the five major bridges on the bay! Yippee! We continued south to the old Dumbarton Railroad Bridge, which was really cool! The RR bridge was destroyed at the western end several years ago, but we saw people walking all the way out to the end from the eastern side.

The Dumbarton RR Bridge is a swing bridge, which means that the center of the bridge pivots around a huge pivot pier. It swings open for boats to go through and swings closed for trains to pass over it. Of course, there are no trains anymore, so it just stays open all the time now for boats to pass through. It makes a totally eerie creeking noise as you pass by. Watch this movie and listen to the creeking.

By the time we turned around to head home, the wind had come up, and the tide started to ebb, so there were lots of waves. If you've ever sailed with Dave, you know he almost never uses the engine, but he decided to motor through the swing bridge upwind, since the opening is only about 20 feet wide. Safety first! We killed the engine after clearing the RR bridge and started beating upwind all the way to the channel. With around 15-18 knots of wind, now we were sailing!

By the time we entered the channel, the wind was starting to die down again. But, not wanting to be stinkpots, we sailed on a beam reach all the way down the channel and into the slip. It was another wonderful, relaxing day of sailing!

More pictures are available on Picasa.

Sailing the North Bay with New Friends

When I decided to take a 3-month break from work this fall, I sent email to a couple of sailing crew lists I'm on, asking if anyone else is available to sail on weekdays. I got two responses from women in San Francisco, and we finally had our first sail together today.

Emily, Amy, and I met at Modern Sailing in Sausalito at 10am and took some time to familiarize ourselves with the boat, since none of us had sailed on it before. It was a C&C 32 with a roller furling jib, self-tailing winches, and all the conveniences anyone could want... nice boat.

We headed out of the marina around 10:45am with under 5 knots of wind and a flood tide. Although sailing out the gate seemed like a good idea at first, considering the possibility that we might have no wind all day, we decided to use the flood tide to go up to the San Raphael-Richmond Bridge first and then see where the wind takes us... literally.

From Sausalito, we headed northeast through Racoon Straits and then tacked north up to the bridge. It was slow going all the way with very light (almost nonexistent at times) wind. By the time we got to the bridge, the wind started picking up, and we were at high slack. We basically sailed under the bridge, echoed, turned around, and came back. That was my 4th bridge in the bay! From there, we headed east toward Alcatraz, but the wind kept shifting, so by the time we got into the slot, we decided that it was time to head back in.

After a fun ride through the Point Knox Shoal at the southwest corner of Angel Island, we headed back toward Sausalito. As soon as we entered the harbor, we were in the wind shadow of the hills, and our wind just about died. We sailed as far as we could but ended up motoring into the marina right at 4pm, our required return time. Emily did a masterful job of getting her into the slip, and it took almost no time to button her down.

Here's to lots of long, sunny, relaxing days of sailing on the bay with new friends!

More pictures are available on Picasa.

Sailing Lake Tahoe

Dave, Sandi, Norbert, and I spent last weekend at Tahoe-Donner and had a great time... except for Norbert's car accident, that is. On his way there Friday night, there was a terrible rain storm with high winds, and Norbert hydroplaned, spun out, hit a tree, and flipped over his car. Amazingly, he walked away with only a cracked rib where the seatbelt caught him. Phew! His car was totalled and towed away, so Dave, Sandi, and I drove back to Colfax (about 50 miles) to pick him up. The rest of the weekend was really nice, though.

On Saturday, when we were exploring Lake Tahoe by car and foot, we discovered a place that had a 50' Santa Cruz taking passengers out on the lake a couple of times a day. So, on Sunday, we headed back to the lake for the noon-time cruise.

The cruise was fun, but everything on the boat except for the wheel was automated. Just push a button and the mainsail goes up. Push a button and the jib comes out. No trimming, no telltales, no work to do. It was very weird to be on a sailboat for two hours and not do anything. Dave and Norbert each took a turn at the wheel, though, so they had some fun. It was bitter cold out there (around 40 degrees F), but we were all dressed warmly, so it wasn't so bad. It was fun to watch the other passengers freak out a little when we were heeled way over close hauled in about 25 knots of wind. Heh, heh, heh...

I've used some of Sandi Crane's pictures here. Thanks for getting some great ones, Sandi!

To see more of my pictures from the weekend, click here.

SBYRA South Bay Championship Race

Yesterday was the first of the 2-day SBYRA South Bay Championship race hosted by Sequoia Yacht Club. I was honored to be asked by Skipper Stan to crew for him on the Smokin J. The crew members were Alex H (tactician), Jerry (main), Alex E (jib), Monica (foredeck/spinnaker), and me (jib/mid-deck/spinnaker).

We arrived at the docks at 9am, and Stan started going over the rigging. When Stan went off to the captains' meeting at 10am, Alex H took over and talked about raising and dousing the spinnaker. He assigned jobs for before, during, and after and went over general information about how he would be directing us and what he expected of us during the race.

By 10:30am, we were underway, motoring out to the S marker, where the committee boat was waiting to mark the start of the race. We still didn't know the race course or start time. The flag flying on the committee boat indicated that we needed to get within earshot. Just before noon, we were told we'd be running course C (X -> 12 -> Y -> S) but there would be a 15-minute delay (hoping more wind would come up).

About 20-25 boats were out there, all staying close to the committee boat to get instructions, and all doing time trials in preparation for the start. It was a little frantic to say the least. After 15 minutes, the committee boat announced another 15-minute delay, so we kept practicing tacking and timed starts. Finally, we got the end-of-delay horn, then the 4-minute warning, the 2-minute warning, the 1-minute warning, and started the race around 12:30pm.

The wind was NW at about 3-5 knots, which meant that the race was all about strategy and sail trim. Good thing we had our master tactician on board! Alex H was great about monitoring everything that was going on in the boat and giving us all instructions as we needed them. Stan was a master helmsman and kept us on course, much of the time sailing to the jib within the prescribed course.

The best part for me was that I got to participate in raising and dousing the spinnaker, which I'd never really done before.

We were using a symmetrical spinnaker with a spinnaker pole and needed to gybe the spinnaker as we tacked. (I'd raised the asymmetrical spinnaker on Fran's boat last week, but that was a piece of cake compared to this. It doesn't require a spinnaker pole, and we didn't gybe.)

My first job was to guide the chute out of the bag when we raised it. That went pretty well, except that someone had "banded it", and we had some trouble breaking those bands and getting it to fill at first. The purpose of banding the spinnaker is to keep the sail from filling before is is fully raised. If it fills in a 12-knot breeze before it's fully raised, it will become difficult to complete the hoist. The bands are supposed to break without delay when the sail fills in heavier air. Since the wind was so light that day, though, the bands didn't break easily, even when it was fully hoisted.

My next job was to grab the active sheet and help Monica get it into the end of the pole while we were gybing. That went pretty well. Last, I needed to pull in the chute when we doused without letting it touch the water, get caught in anything, or tear. That was a little tricky, because I gathered it into my lap instead of shoving it right down the hatch. I hadn't realized how big it was, so that didn't go as quickly as planned. Also, the spinnaker got caught in one of the fairleads, so Alex E couldn't trim the jib, as he was supposed to, and I couldn't get the spinnaker down below. I was able to release it pretty quickly, though, with no damage to anything, and we were able to get back on track.

As we rounded X, the first marker, we eased into second place behind Bad PuddyCat and were neck-and-neck with Black Sheep, and we pretty much stayed that way throughout the race. Captain Ron on Black Sheep got ahead of us at a couple of points in the race, but we ended up going low on the last leg and beating them by under a minute. As it turned out, Wired crossed the finish line four minutes after we did but came out ahead of us on corrected time. So we took third place in the race.

The ride home was very relaxed in stark contrast to how intense the race was. We were all eating and drinking (water!) on the way back, and Stan decided to see if he could raise the spinnaker by himself. Of course, Jerry and Alex E jumped up to help him, and Monica sat back and revelled in the knowledge that it was taking three men to do the job she usually does by herself. She was very pleased.

Back at the docks, we hung out on the J for a while, drinking chardonney, eating Halloween candy, and debriefing the race. All in all, I think we did a damn good job. Coming in second behind Bad PuddyCat, which is a big, fast boat that's had the same crew racing together all summer, is nothing to sneeze at. For my first real race, this was a great experience.