Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Race the Cape - Part II

Due to technical difficulties the post will be in two parts, the second part seems to be lost in cyber space?!? 
The next morning we had a sail past at St. Peter's to start off the festivities. 
The first leg of the race was from St. Peter's to Ben Eoin, about 26nm which can be forever in sailboat mileage when there is no wind.  We started the race at 1100 hours and the first Mark was approx. 5nm away.  We rounded that mark at 1700 hours which if you do the math is less than 1nm an hour which can be very frustrating.  We watched the spinnakers hanging from the masts like a bunch of deflated balloons, they called the race at the end of the 5 nam.  Miracles of miracles we managed to finish in third place in our division and got a lovely prize from North Sails, yippee!!
The second day of racing started off very slowly once again, but the wind switched and picked up at noon.  We raced from Ben Eoin to Baddeck.  The unique part of this leg was we had to stop, take our sails down go through a bridge which had be opened up for us and then put our sails up and restart the race.  Here we are preparing to go through the bridge. 
We had a curling buddy of mine on board for this leg.  Joanne is one the board of directors for Race the Cape and a dedicted volunteer, co-ordinating the volunteers who are driving the competitors around.  It was great to have her on board she was a great helmsman.  Here we are in Baddeck at the end of the race. 
We are having a layover day in Baddeck today.  Joanne and I went hiking to Usige Ban Falls, it was about 2.5 km enough to shake my muscles loose after the vigorous Celtic step I was attempting on the dance floor last night. Here are most of the yachts squished onto the Baddeck Yacht Club docks.