Close Calls

Got the boat together. Skeleton crew. That's including my personal skeleton of my former self. I asked my right knee to spring and all it could do is demonstrate that it was already sprung so I started the race with some bleeding deck rash. GPS was dodgey after weeks in the boat yard, but we were able to tease out of it some bearings. The only speed reading came from our Speed Puck. A good GPS was critical on this day when we had low marine layers of pea soup visibility alternating with sunlight through out the racing.

Crew, what we had, was in the 'training mode'. Because we needed as many eyes peeled into the fog as we could muster, I elected not to deploy the spinnaker. With the wind close to 17 knots for most of the race, a spinnaker may have helped us pick up a place. As it was, thanks to a balls-out, freakingly lucky hairline-panic start at the pin, we corrected out to 2nd in a ten-boat class. My legs and hands were cramping for most of the sail. I'm living and sailing on leased time. I have to be selling. Until then I have to recruit younger knees to keep me sailing.

What have I learned today? In reverse order of importance:

• Not to hand a camera to a guest on board without turning off "movies" first.
• Don't try sailing in your new topsiders again.
• Not to aim for the perfect start (like I scored today). That gets you into serious trouble. Aim for a good enough start, and accept the luck that follows. That's what I was about today.
• I Need to recruit more crew with younger knees.
• I gotta sell this sailboat until it sells.