I had a blast last night at the races. We should have by rights come in dead last but it is just a really fun time and nobody notices if you break the rules, or screw up really bad, which is what we did! The boat I was on had a solant stay, which is a stay that is very close to the forestay so you can run two headsails. This means that in order to tack you have to roll in the genoa so it can get around, not a good sail set in a very short race when there is some tacking involved. ANYWAY, we went around the first mark and we were in the thick of things, 5 boats converging on the mark at the same time. Our tillerman decided to sneak around the inside and then we had to tack, oh oh, the owner hauled in the jib to tack and I was trying like heck on the other winch to pull the sail in when the owner figured out he had forgotten to let go of the other line. Well by this time we had drifted into the bouy that marked the turn, a huge no no in sail boat racing, then we managed to hook the dinghy that tied to the mark and started to drag the 6 foot wooden dinghy into the water. The look on the poor guy’s face who was in the dinghy was outstanding. We managed to let him loose and then had to listen to Barry, who was on an different boat harass us about our lousy sailing.
Oh yeah, we were also 40 seconds to late to the line and the accusations were flying as to whose fault it was, yup, we were racing.
We sailed the short course because we were a smaller boat and ended up being 6th across the line. The owner got a prize of a free dinner, so all was well that ended well. There is no handicapping or attention paid to rules so it was a fun way to race. We ended off the night having dinner and drinks at the Vava’u Yacht Club. Barry even managed a few dances later on in the evening.