Bayview Long Distance Race - I'm Late for a Very Important Date

This was the 2nd day of racing after the EBC on Friday night. That race we managed to get a good start and with Ken Brown's help we managed to lead the entire way. We started the BYC in light air out of the south and this year they had the entire fleet start in two waves. Unfortunately we were late and put up the main after the gun went off. We only had Hot Ticket to race against in our class and spent the entire time catching up which we almost did. We only had 6 people while HT had 5.

One lap around the lake

The first leg was a beam reach and the wind came up to 15 knots by the time we got to the Thames River buoy. Hot Ticket gybed ahead of us with their .6 spinnaker, while we did with our .75. Eventually we both changed to the code 0's. At the St. Clair Light we both went back to our ap1 genoas. We tacked back and forth with the hope we could get from outside of HT's line. 

The storm at first did not seem to contain much wind but looks were deceiving

Eventually off of Gaukler Point the clouds got darker out of the west. I remember saying I do not see much wind in those clouds but prepare to roll in the head sail. Ticket was about a 1/4 mile to the west and I saw them get clobbered.

You can see the boat turn down to get the headsail under the mainsail

I called for a tack and then to roll in the head sail immediately. We were hit 10 seconds later.  Unfortunately we were slow rolling it and I had to turn the boat down to do it in 35 knot winds. We eventually got it in and just ran with it until the wind abated. We then rolled it back out and fetched the rest of the way to the club with Ticket finishing a little ahead. 

Considering the crew was some put together with a couple of other J120 people we did OK under difficult circumstances. Nicole trim the spinnaker competently for nearly the entire trip and with enough breaks from Tom Jackson I steered nearly the whole race.  Fortunately for us we saw some boats finishing the race while eating dinner with drifters up. Apparently the storm had sucked all the wind out of the area.