We kicked off the PHRF racing season on Saturday. The day started off warm and sunny, but clouds started covering the sky around 11am and we had a few sprinkles throughout the day. More relevant to our sailing was the lack of wind. At less than 5 knots, it was a sharp contrast to the previous week's practice in 20+ knot winds.
Once we got out to the starting line, we waited, apparently for the race organizers to determine if there would be enough wind to race, and if so, the optimal way to layout the race course. This gave us plenty of time to check out the other boats. There were two other boats in our class - a J29 and a Farr 30. There were also several other groups of boats that looked bigger and fancier than ours, many of them Navy boats sailed by cadets from the Naval academy (one of which had its mainsail flaked on the boom with prefectly exacting precision). A crowd favorite was the boat Airmail, due to its clever paint job.
The racing finally kicked off after noon. Our class was the last to start. We had a great start followed by a good upwind leg. The J29 took the lead (not unexpected as it is a faster boat than Arcas) with us close behind. We rounded the mark and then set the spinnaker. After we rounded the mark, I looked back to see that the Farr 30 had missed the mark and had lost speed trying to get around it. Unfortunately, my glee was short-lived as we quickly realized that we had set the spinnaker incorrectly and the top of the spinnaker was wrapped around the jib. We had to lower it, untangle it, and reset it, none of which resulted in speedy progress down the racecourse.
When we got to the downward mark, we learned that the organizers had shortened the racecourse so that we wouldn't be circling the marks twice. The race was over! It was, shall we say, unsatisfying. We spent the next few hours practicing setting the spinnaker in preparation for next week. Hill tried to focus on the positive aspects of the race with the team, but they weren't buying it. We're a bunch of professional over-achievers who seek perfection. But there's always next time!
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