Afloat for the First Time in 2011!

Nothing much to write home about. It was a 5.82 nautical mile contest in 2.5 knot (tops) lasting four hours. 24 boats in a mixed-fleet, pursuit race with reversed starts based upon PHRF handicaps. The only interest to me: Good Guys were in one of six Harbor-20's.

Lousy start on my part. The usual explanation holds: I still feel new to this fleet and, not having sorted out aggressiveness on the starting line, did not want to risk being pushed over early in a wind lighter than the current. At first the weather mark we were about last. Not having a 3rd hand aboard, the spinnaker was not an issue. Wing-and-winging it, we set off DDW. Two of the H-20's were also not an issue, as they were already out of reach, visible only on the horizon. We duked it out down the first 'run' in the shifty zephyrs and found ourselves contesting for 3rd place among the H-20's. And so it went back and forth up the 2nd weather leg. A guy from another boat called it the "whether leg", appropriately. Overlapped at the end, we had to round in fourth place. However we played our don't-follow-the-leader-card and made some good and lucky decisions that allowed us to look back and photograph before finishing drifting across in 3rd place. In the 24-boat fleet, we finished 12th, ten boats having dropped. What really made my day is my friend, a good sailor in a Merit-25, finished behind us.

Like I said: not much to say for it.