W1

The Wednesday series started last night. Grand National also made it to the start line. Allan has taken over as RO and Kim was in the mark boat. The wind was S at 12 knots. There were 4 starts with our group starting last. Jack Rabbit didn't compete.

We had a good start except for some confusion about the time. A couple of boats held back and we wondered if we mis timed the start. There was no Individual Recall flag and our timers were in agreement. We didn't go back.

Over the course of the race I convinced myself that we must have been over early. The hold back boats were good racers and I assumed that they would be right. By convincing myself of this I put myself into a foul mood which not only was wrong it wasn't helpful! A lesson for me is that if I have confidence in timing, I should go with that, and not worry about other possibilities.

We are a bit out of practise. David is now mast man and has to familiarize himself with new geography. At one point he had to be hauled back after almost falling over board! The spinnaker hoist did not go well and ended up with a large tear. We went wing on wing while Charles with help from Emi and David did a repair. (After the race Charles told me he suffers from seasickness and was not happy about going below. He did a grat job in spite of his legitimate anxiety.) The repair was completed but only after we went slightly off course. Notorious wasn't expecting us on Starboard and we had to get out of the way. No protest but they did their turns. Very nice to see that.

The second downwind leg went much better. The chute went up and the repair held. I think that getting the repair done was a sort of 'victory'; it was certainly good to see that we were able to react positively to a problem.

I found out that, the hold out boats from the start thought they were in a fifth, non existent start.

We ended up getting a second. This put me in a much better mood!