Ben and I participated in our first race this past weekend! I wrote a short article for our club’s newsletter so thought I would post it here as well!
2011 Hillsboro Race
Last year, 1 month after joining PBSC, I participated in the Hillsboro Race as a spectator on the Race Committee boat, to photograph the start – my first time at any sort of sailing race or sailing event. It was nerve-wracking, fun, bumpy and wet…but I learned a lot and was grateful for the opportunity. Since that race, my husband Ben and I have purchased our first sailboat, moved aboard (along with our 2 cats, Sammie and Brutus) and signed up to race this year – our first race, and our boat’s first race. We sailed down with everyone Friday morning and got completely soaked! What a rain storm we sailed through – and a very prominent wind shift. Not having much sailing experience yet, I have never noticed a wind shift quite so sudden before. One second it’s out of the southwest and then it flipped to the northeast…in about one second! Foulies on, we were all still soaked to the bone and had pruny skin for hours after the rain finally let up. Finally arriving at the party, 9 wet and long hours later, we were ready to blow off a little steam!
Saturday morning we were up and at ‘em early with everyone, and off the dock by 8:45am. Ben, Tom, Karen and I puttered out and talked tactics. I had set some pretty lofty goals for our first race: don’t hit anything, don’t fall overboard and don’t be the last one across the finish line. Yep, we’re serious racers alright, haha! Fortunately we had our ringer on board with us, Tom Sheeran, with 30 years of racing experience, to teach us some tactics! 15 minutes out from the start of our fleet and we figure it’s finally time to put the sails up and turn the engines off. To reach goal number one (don’t hit anyone) we stayed far back from the starting line while the other fleets made their starts. Ok, 5 minutes from the multihull start, here we go! We’re counting down the seconds and I’m so anxious, I can’t wait to cross that line! Start time and off go the 2 Corsairs – bye guys, see you next year! Um, we’re still not very close to the starting line. I know I didn’t want to hit anyone, but still! Ok, a minute later we finally cross the starting line, tack and head out to the Gulfstream (or the Jetstream as Karen liked to call it!). I knew it was going to be a bumpy ride and it did turn out to in fact be the bumpiest ride I have yet been through…and the longest sail I have yet been on. As we were approaching Palm Beach, one of the Corsairs passed us on the way home back to Hillsboro! 4:18:30 we finally crossed the finish line, accomplishing all of our goals! And the bonus, we weren’t last in our class (ok, the 2 multihulls behind us disqualified, but still it counts for something, right?). Just like last year, it was nerve-wracking, fun, bumpy and wet…and I learned so much and am so grateful we had this amazing opportunity to improve our sailing skills. A big thanks to Tom and Karen for being great crew! We know our Lagoon 380, Buckeye, won’t be winning any races anytime soon, but we’re going to keep on racing for the fun, and to improve our skills. Who knows, one of these years we just might place 3rd right behind those 2 Corsairs (haha)!
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Whew! Thank you for a fun read. Glad you made your goals and I hope Ben feels better.
By: Gail Summerhill on May 2, 2011
at 2:16 pm