sanjuan28

 Race 1 was cancelled due to the visit of POTUS. Race 2 was abandoned due to the lack of wind. Race 3 was a "T" course, Start-1-3-Finish.  We had a good start.  Second around 1.  First around 3. First on finish.  Could not get a track, because of technical difficulties.  Both my batteries were dead.  As Monty Python might say "Expired".  I started the engine normally and moved to the pump out slip in RCYC.  Cleaned the starboard side as normal, but when we tried to start the engine, it didn't.  We ended up saying, "this is a sailboat.  We are going to a sailboat race.  Let's sail out of the marina and race."  We did.  We even sailed back into the marina without mishap.   Race 4 was a "TT" course, Start-1-3-1-3-Finish.  We had a poor start and never really caught up. We finished last, about a boat length behind WildHeart.  We had trouble getting the sails trimmed after tacking.  The wind was 10 knots.  I replaced the batteries the followin

SYSCO Summer Thursday Series Race 6 July 8, 2021 This evening was a beautiful light wind racing night.  The course was "T", Start-1(Buoy 2)-3-Finish.  Crew was back to Jon and Jill.  But before the race this evening, we tried to thread the new spinnaker line.  Jon and I hoisted Jill to the top of the mast.  I even drew her a diagram on how to thread the line through the spinnaker block at the bow end of the mast head and down through the hole in the mast.  It would have worked if the hole was larger or the line splice was smaller in diameter.  But Jill tried valiantly to get the line into the hole after threading the chain through it.   However the evening was not lost.  I had repaired our hull cleaner and cleaned the hull, which needed it. As I stated earlier, the wind was lighter this evening than in the past races.  The starting line was wide and watching the boats sailing, I notice that port tack sailing was more down stream than starboard tack.  So for a change we decide

  SYSCO Summer Thursday Race 5 July 1, 2021 The course was W, Start-1(Buoy 2)-4-Finish.  Normal summer wind from the west.  Start was off east end of Tomahawk Island.  My normal crew was back.  My repair of the hull cleaner did not hold so we did not clean the hull.  Aventura was a little slower because of the dirty bottom.  Looks like we were about 1/4 knot slower because of the dirty bottom looking at the track below. We had a decent start on starboard tack.  We held that tack until the entrance to Tomahawk Marina.  Tacked to port and made it to the ramparts under the condos on the Washington side.  Tacked to starboard to make the mark.  Blewstreak, La Dolce Vita, and Wildheart rounded the mark before us.  We were close behind and was able to put up the pole fairly quickly.  We headed toward the Oregon side and shallower waters with clean air.   Managed to stay ahead of La Dolce Vita, was level with Wildheart, but Blewstreak streaked ahead of us all.  About half way to the leeward ma

SYSCO Thursday Summer Series, Race 4  June 24, 2021   The race course was W, Start-1(Buoy 2)-4-Finish.  Crew was Arnie and Jon.  Arnie was aboard for a one night stand.  Jill had to do something else this evening.  Wind was a normal summer breeze.  The committee boat set up in the middle of the river adjacent the east end of Tomahawk Island.  This put the starting mark half way to the Washington shore.  We took a couple of runs to the mark after getting our timer synced to flags.  We started on starboard tack.  La Dolce Vita (LDV) tried again to push us above the mark.  But we were able to break overlap and did not have to worry about that.  We stayed on this tack until the west entrance of Tomahawk Bay Marina.  We tacked to port to go to the Washington side.  Once there we tacked to starboard to round the mark.  Blewstreak and Wildheart rounded the mark in front of us.   Jon with Arnie's help put up the pole fairly quickly.  We were able to get into clear air by going toward the O

  SYSCO Thursday Summer Series, Race 3,  6-17-2021 Race course was X, Start-1-5-1-3-Finish.  Wind was a little stronger than a normal summer wind being about 8 knots with gusts to 12.  My good crew was aboard, Jon and Jill.   We had a good start, but was protested by La Dolce Vita (LDV).  We were making the mark, but LDV was leeward and tried to luff us.  If we had luffed, we would have not made the mark. So, we kept our course.  We took my 360 to exonerate his protest.  The 360 can be see in the track below just after the start.  We proceeded to continue on a starboard tack until we were able to tack to the windward mark, 1, which was actually mid-channel buoy 2.  We rounded the mark second. Jon had trouble with setting the whisker pole.  I made a new sail end for the pole to replace the broken one from last race.  I made it much stouter, but short.  Next week it will be longer.  We rounded the first leeward mark, 5, 4th.  We were caught by LDV and Wildheart because we could not get o

  SYSCO Thursday Race Series, Race 2, 6-10-2021 Race was Start-1-3-finish, race "T".  Crew was excellent again, Jon and Jill.  Winds were lighter than previous nights.  We started on port tack along with a lot of overs.  We were right behind Blewstreak.  We stayed on port tack with Blewstreak heading for what looked like Buoy 2 instead of the mark, which was near Tomahawk Marina's west entrance.  We tacked to starboard when we could make the mark.  We were first around the mark.    Then it started.  The pointed end of the whisker pole broke off.  Jon did heroics to get the pole to set, but it would not stay.  Finally, he rigged a knot on the end with the port jib sheet.  Miraculously, it held.  But the sail configuration was wrong.  I had instructed him to put the pole out starboard.  We should have put it out to port, but we discovered that later.  Meanwhile we were holding our own.  We even were first for a while, but the starboard pole set took its toll.  We were 4th a