1990 Canadian Sailcraft CS34 Shoal Draft
Sail #8268

1982 Catalina 22 Fin Keel
Sail #10506

1994 MUMM 36 ACE
Sail # 29206

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

C22 Whitby Race Night

Bart is on vacation in Paris so it was me (his daughter, Melissa), John and Chris on Still Time.

No Tanker Jones tonight so Bezerk called the start. The start line was between the 9 and 1 marks. We were to record our own time. Only a few knots of wind from the West that was very sporadic throughout the night. Course was a 3 short.

We were a bit slow on the start so were about 3-4 minutes behind. We then missed the 9 mark and had to tack back and re-start (not very much wind at the beginning of the race). The Sharks got quite the head start on us. Those Sharks are really good when there's little wind!

At mark 3 we were cutting it VERY CLOSE to the mark, and didn't want to miss ANOTHER ONE! So John stripped down and jumped in the lake, grabbed a line in his teeth and pulled us around mark 3 using his raw strength. It was really close, in fact we did end up grazing the buoy a bit, so we had to do a 360. This waslLucky for John, because we definitely wouldn't have stopped to pick him back up otherwise.

When we approached mark 5 the Sharks were rounding mark 7. Those Sharks are really good in the wind! 

After we rounded mark 5, things took a stern for the worse. A GIANT salmon jumped right into our boat! He proceeded to drink all of our Maclays and brought new meaning to drinking like a fish. Of course, this wasn't our biggest problem, because as we all know, the Loch Ontario Monster feeds on salmon. 

We noticed the current start to shift and the waves get bigger when we realized that the great sea monster was circling our boat, with a taste for beer-braised salmon. The boat started rocking so hard and somehow all three of us smacked our heads together, rendering us unconscious. I can only assume there were cartoon stars floating around our heads.

When we came to, we don't know how, but we had gotten all the way to the New York coast and PIRATES had boarded our vessel! We explained to them the utmost importance of the WYC Wednesday Race nights and how we didn't want to let the Fleet Captain down. I'm not going to say what Chris had to sacrifice*, 'cause this is a PG blog, but we were able to convince them to tow us back to mark 7 so we could finish with the rest of the fleet. GREAT wind at this point and we were able to get back very quickly!

We ended up crossing the finish line at 43 minutes and 44 seconds, about 15 minutes behind the Sharks. Those Sharks really know how to race a tight course!

Overall, great night on the water!

*Let's just say Pirates really like booty.

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