For July 3rd, I had my friend Bob Walker's wife (Pam) on board. I had invited another friend, but he bailed on me at the last minute. Pam had learned to sail last year, but had never sailed with the spinnaker raised on a boat.
I figured we would go out and have fun and see how well we could do with out the spinnaker. Pam was a quick learner on the jib. I was really quite impressed. We were first around the windward mark by a good margin. This was to be a lesson for me on how important the spinnaker is on this boat. By 1/3 of the way down we were passed by one boat, and then 1/2 way down were passed by another. The boat in 4th was on its way to pass us when the wind totally died and it became a race of who could find the wind the fastest. Pam was great. She moved around the boat very silently and got the jib in to the correct position easily. We were fast together and we won the race without ever raising the spinnaker. I would say I was lucky on that as the wind helped out in that regard. I would gladly have her on board again. There was no MC racing as it looked like the wind never filled back in. In truth that was wrong. I went out and practiced with Bob Cole. It was really blowing out. I had a hard time keeping the boat down and felt really rusty sailing in heavy air.
For the 4th, I had my friend Sarah Grossman and Mike Bono on board the Lightning. Mike had been out with me once or twice before, but is learning sailing. Sarah had sailing experience, but has not been out in years and never sailed a boat with a spinnaker before.
After a brief explanation of the boat to Sarah and going over the spinnaker with Mike, we went out. We did raise the spinnaker heading to the starting line, but it was truly a learn on the fly activity. For the first race I had Mike in the middle and Sarah on the jib. We were sailing with the fleet to the mark and managed to round in second, but we had a terrible first set. By the time we had it raised we had to take it down before even attempting a gybe. We had reached totally out of any good sailing area. We were in last place out of 4 boats at that point. We sailed well enough to pass boat number 4 and get into third, but were had no chance to get close to boats 1 and 2. The second set was better but not by much. We were able to gybe, but it was a terrible gybe. The wind had started to pick up and we were also running out of sailing area and close to land. I was nervous. We were able to get the sail down safely and sail back to the leeward mark still in third and finished in that order. I felt like that race was a total fricken disaster. It left me wondering about my teaching methods on the spinnaker and even a bit on the jib.
The RC decided to only have us go for 1 lap in the second race. I had the two switch so that Sarah was in the middle and Mike was on the jib. We had a good start and was with the fleet at the windward mark. I had to coach Mike a lot on the jib but it did seem that he was starting to understand somewhat. The set was much improved and even our gybes were better, though I had a hard time convincing Mike not to go up on the deck to gybe the pole. Dave was in first, and Leon and I were battling for second. Leon had a bad rounding at the leeward mark and it left me to easily finish second. On the way in I let both Sarah and Mike steer the boat some. This day left me wondering how best to coach and teach the boat as both Sarah and Mike had a tough time of learning. I don't expect them to pick it all up right away, but I was surprised at how tough it was. Maybe I have just forgotten how hard sailing actually is. Something to think about for the next time I have new people on board. My main thing is to have fun and then to somehow sail well. Both of them were nice to have on the boat and I think they would come back.
We were able to get 4 races in on the MC. We had 8 boats for the first three races and 7 for the last. They were all short 1 lap races. The wind was 12-18 out of the west. Chris Hawk and I were 1, 2 in the first two races. I just could not catch him The third race had an interesting start where Chris, Brent P and I were at the pin end. I was over the line and fell into the pin. Chris spun around but as he was passing behind Brent, Brent drifted into him, putting a small gash into his boat. I had to do a 360 for hitting the pin and then battled really hard to get back to 4th. I was in sixth at the leeward mark, but had caught back up to everyone. I was able to pass two boats on the last upwind.
We had a Crazy Ivan start on the last race. The wind went light for the start and the first upwind. Right at the start it veered to the left. I was at the pin, but was early and had to spin around. After I cleared myself and then tacked back to starboard it was slow sailing. Chris was angry as he was stuck. He wanted to tack back to port, but couldn't. I was able to escape and was in 4th at the windward mark. Chris never recovered. Spencer, who was sailing his new to him boat, managed to round first and he kept his lead the rest of race. I was able to pass Brent G. and finished 3rd.
It was a fun weekend and the last time I could sail either boat in the weekend races until July 31st.
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