ACE Donald Summerville Race

The Donald Summerville memorial race is a medium distance race to Frenchman's Bay and back (approximately 25 miles).  Winds were forecast to be 15 knots from the SW with gusts to 30: PERFECT conditions for ACE.   We were excited because ACE is really a long distance offshore racer NOT an around the cans racer.

Crew for the race:

• Michael C (driver)
• Michael A (pit)
• Michael Y (main)
• Me (bow)
• Peter (jib)
• Jeremy (jib)

We went out with the darcon main (because we could reef it if required) and #3.  For the downwind start, you could NOT put the spinnaker up until after crossing the line.  We had a good start and immediately hoisted the large red spinnaker.

Five Fifteen and Lively at the start

We were the lead boat for a about 3/4 of the way to Frenchmans.

Maggie Kelly and 515 pulled ahead of us at the turning mark.

At the turning mark, somehow the lazy jib sheet got wrapped around the doused spinnaker down the hatch, so we would not gybe when went wanted to.  Lost a little bit of time as we got it sorted out.

Upwind, we were a little too heeled over, but the boat was in control going upwind at around 7 knots keeping neck and neck with the other two.  We could have used a reef in the main.

Lively and Maggie Kelly after about 5 miles

Rail Meat

Maggie Kelly upwind
Beneteau First 40.7

We finished 3rd across the line about 2 minutes behind the leaders, and 3rd in corrected time.

We were proud of how we sailed ACE.

After the race, we sailed her to National, where Mike Ahearn drove us back to ABYC.  The drive from National took almost 2 hours because of traffic!

We met up with the Whitby Yacht Club cruisers for a BBQ and drinks near the clubhouse.  It was nice!


Trip Odometer: 40.50 miles
Moving Average: 6.7 knots
Moving Time: 06:00:00

Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2014/20140920.kmz