Mills Race - What could of been

This one I managed to recruit the world famous Chuck Bayer and the veteran Tony Lawrence. Leading up to the regatta the race committee decided to put it to us. Since we did not have dacron headsail they decided we did not deserve a roller furler credit. This took us down to a 45 from a 51 DRYA rating. This Mills was fast. We started on a run at 17:50 with up to 25 knots of wind. We put up our small spinnaker and managed to stay even with Large Marge and Crazy Horse. The sport boats in these conditions simply left us. When the wind moderated to 20 we did a nearly perfect spinnaker change to the .6oz large chute. When we rounded the buoy at Cedar Pointe we went to a head sail and later a code 0 when the wind moderated going north. At midnight we got headed and went to the ap1. When we rounded the top mark we then went the code 0 and left the sportboat behind us by at least a mile. For the next mark I called for the .6 and we to the .6 spinnaker. Unfortunately we had to launch it 3 times before we could get it up without a twist. The rest of the race we gibed back and forth as needed to the finish. We finished at 03:58, 35 minutes behind Marge and 30 behind Crazy Horse. When I plugged in the numbers we would missed 1st place in IRC by 62 seconds but in Lake Erie PHRF we were 6th. What a shame!

Results:
1 1 USA 139 Vanpire 32 Melges 32 /Reichel P Dan van Heeckeren 27 1/2:54:18 -00:33:49 08:30:28 1
2 2 51757 Stand Aside Thompson 8 /870 Bill Bollin 45 1/3:20:11 -00:56:21 08:33:49 2
3 3 691 Adrenalin Mumm 30 Sailing Team, MSU 45 1/3:34:57 -00:56:21 08:48:35 3
4 4 73273 Pterodactyl Evelyn /Evelyn Symonds, Mark 39 1/3:40:24 -00:48:50 09:01:33 4
5 5 117 Say Uncle Henderson /Henderson Lemonds, Kevin 39 1/3:41:51 -00:48:50 09:03:00 5
6 6 25497 Carinthia J/120 /J/120 Frank Kern 45 1/3:58:18 -00:56:21 09:11:56 6
7 7 USA39 Three Niner Mumm /30 Gonzalez, Dave 45 1/4:04:21 -00:56:21 09:17:59 7
8 11 USA 42744 Crazy Horse Frers /50 Bud & Andy Siudara 12 1/3:38:53 -00:15:01 09:33:51 8