This one started wild and wooly. On the way out to the start, rain started coming down in sheets. Then the wind came. Visibility was so bad that two boats rammed each other in the prestart area. We hung out on the Michigan shore side before the race. When we finally traversed the starting line before the gun we found that the restriction mark that had started right behind the committee boat had drifted a third of the way down the line. This made for an interesting start.
We ducked just to the left of the restriction mark and then being leeward boat enabled us to get good boat speed. With the gun we put up our .6 oz spinnaker beside Hot Ticket. HT put up their .75 up because of their fear of more thunderstorms. I noticed a little wind shift and gybed towards shore. Flyin' Irish followed us on this path.
South of Harbor Beach,the wind died, especially out in the lake. We did spot some cat paws closer into shore so we got in closer. This enabled us to sail farther north than most of the J/120s except for FI. When the wind filed in it enabled us to get a good lead.
After this point the wind picked up feom the west southwest. WE used our 3/4 oz spinnaker mostly up the rest of the leg. We still managed to stay ahead of FI but we had aproblem just before the weather buoy. I did not get the crew up in time and we rounded up a couple of times to go to new headsail. FI rounded 5 minutes before us. The last leg was a fetch nearly the entire distance for abou 65 miles at 18 to 20 knots. We could never make up the distance finishing second. Just finishin the 400 mile on a 18 to 22 knots to Bermuda, this seemed like a walk in the park.
Crew: Nancy Caldwell, Mike Badendeick, Colleen Flanagan, Rod Weston, Brian Gennebaugh, Dale Marshal, Nathan Caspers
Finish: 2nd out of 8 J120s
Link: http://www.byc.com/mack/results.cfm?Cla
Pink Pony - no explanation necessary =>
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