Just John and I tonight.
Windfinder was predicting 8-10 knots from the SE and diminishing after 7pm.
Full racing main and #2.
Course was set to 7 long.
Once out on the water, there was much more wind. We could see whitecaps meaning there was at least 12-15 knots of wind out there. With the prediction that the winds would diminish, we decided to ride it out.
Come race time, I was contemplating going with a the old main with a reef or two and the #3. However, the thought of changing out the bolt rope main in 20+ knots of wind with very wavy seas did not appeal to me.
Upwind we were overpowered. We just dropped the traveler and sheet and John did a good job of feathering the tiller to keep the boat on its feet pretty much using the foresail alone. Anytime we tried to bring the main in, we would start to round up.
Downwind wing on wing, we did fairly well, but we dared not put a pole out on the genoa. Too much wind and waves to risk being up on the foredeck. Brian from FlyBuoy had his whisker pole fold in half when his genoa backwinded.
We had several boats withdraw, including Road Trip! who had their traveler break.
We came last way behind the Sharks by over 10 minutes. Those Sharks like the heavy weather.
We did the best we could with our over canvased situation.
For our efforts we took a 3rd of 5 boats in corrected time in our class.
Trip Odometer: 11.6 miles
Moving Average: 5.4 knots
Moving Time: 02:09:00
Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2014/20140611.kmz
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