Sunday, March 22, 2009

Banderas Bay Regatta 2009

Wow, what a fun packed few days the racing was! There had to be over 50 boats racing in the regatta. There were every different size, shape, rig and number of hulls. There was a beautiful old schooner out that looked marvelous sailing with all sails up. The cats came in every shape and size, there were little J24's and a J160, heavy cruisers and super fast race boats. It was great to see so many smiling faces on the bay. And what weather! The sun was shining with great visibility in the whole bay. Amazing.

We were recruited as crew for Sea Level a ways back so we were both looking forward to it for quite a while. Our friend Ann even flew in from SF to do this race. For the first day I jumped over to Endless Summer since they were in dire need for crew. With me aboard it brought the grand total to a whopping three people and one dog. Though Endless Summer didn't do especially well in the race they were more than happy with themselves. The night before the race Steve and Manjula were unattended on the "enemy boat" of Sea Level. They were all giggles the next morning as they proudly showed me pictures of their sabotage...they wrote LOSER on the port ama of Sea Level in blue tape! The funniest part was that no one told them until they docked after the whole day of racing. Ha, ha, ha! Those two are too much fun, slightly evil, but fun.

The second day of racing I was back on Sea Level, but David was not. David has had a sore throat and a cough for a week and he had worn himself out on the first day of racing. So we were down two people since Carol had taken a bad spill into the cockpit of Sea Level the day earlier and was out of commision. The spinnaker had also ripped and was in the process of being repaired so it was going to be a semi-relaxing day under white sails. Sea Level didn't have a great first day, but we were hoping the next couple days would be better.

The race went alright, but without our tactician it was tough. We found way to many pockets of windless air to be a threat to anyone. We never went into irons, nothing broke and we got fifth place again. So all in all it wasn't a bad day.

The last day David was ready to be back in action as tactician/grinder. Our spinnaker was returned to us 20 minutes prior to the start. The guys got it in the sock and hoisted to make sure all would be proper for when the time came. We were a little late to the start, but we were in the running. We were late hoisting the chute for one leg, but we got it up and flying. It had been stuck in the sock somehow, but Jim and Dan got it fixed. It doused with out a problem and we sailed on. On the final leg we were neck and neck with Cirque when we saw a hole in the spinnaker. We dropped it and crossed the line under white sails.

With it all over we placed fifth. Not bad considering we lost to Profligate (63 feet), Escapade (52 feet), Humu-Humu (75 feet) and Pantera that is just stupid-fast. There were five classes in all, but I can't remember all of the winners. One did stick out really well though...Cirque. Luis got juggling with some crazy cool baton thingies as they went to accept their first place plaque. It was awesome. I guess the boat name Cirque has some history.

Now that things are done with racing it should settle down a little more. David is flying back for a couple days to see the worlds-most-perfect-daughter and pick up engine parts. Hopefully we will have enough parts for David to reassemble the engine so we generate electricity again. We are going to do a crossing to the Sea of Cortez for the race week that begins on April first. For now it is time to come down from the high energy racing and slip back into island time.

2 comments:

AH said...

I like the new black on tan...great highlights of the regatta (visual and textual).

Unknown said...

Alway fun to read your blog. What a great time you guys must be having.