ACE Lake Ontario 300 Day 3

After rounding the Niagara mark at 11:30am on Monday we were speeding towards Port Credit under headsail on a close reach at 6 knots with 9 knots of true wind.

After a while, the wind backed and we were able to fly a reaching chute with a 70 degree AWA:

Winds started dropping and backing so we switched our largest symmetrical.

Not bad for 8 knots of wind

In case you are wondering how they do the live tracking of the race, here is a picture of the Yellow Brick satellite transponder on the stern rail:

Ashley got a turn on the tiller for a while:

We headed up a little east until we had the gybe angle to the PCYC turning mark.

Now we were approaching the dreaded Port Credit Finish Line WINDHOLE!

Winds were lightening; we were being sucked in!

About 100ft from the turning mark, the winds dropped to 2 knots and we had to douse the spinnaker and goto a headsail.  The leftover waves were such that you could not set a sail!

UGGGHHHH

Turning Mark

Flapping sails

The Finish Mark

Took us half an hour to go the final half mile!

We scored a DFL in our division of 5 boats, but finish 7th of 9 boats overall, beating the Open 60s in corrected time.

The difference in corrected time between first (Spitfire) and us (ACE) was four and a half minutes
We were the 13th boat to finish from the field of 80.

We sailed as good a race as we could, but got killed by our decision to go left after Point Petre.

After getting our sails down, we parked on the wall in front of the pool and were greeted by our Whitby friends from Razorbill who won the Sperry Cup for PHRF overall; CONGRATULATIONS

Neil and Peter from Razorbill

They helped us fold our sails and had a drink with them before having another on O Canada.

Ashley and Jenny grinding on O Canada

Love sailing on ACE.

Love sailing with the people on it.

Can't wait until next year.

Another Lake Ontario 300 is in the record books.

This year we decided not to use the regular water bottles and go with four 20L water jugs with spiggots.  We secured them to the galley with padeyes and shock chord.  Everyone had a water bottle that they kept refilling.  After 3 days on the water we only had one small bag of garbage!

Trip Odometer: 328.34 miles
Avg Speed: 6.1 knots
Max Speed: 12.7 knots
Moving Time: 53:45:00

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