Nice to get back out on the river to race. Of course we had to have at least one misadventure, this is sailing. Again it was while leaving the slip. I backed out of the slip without mishap, but did notice I back out in front of another boater. But he was well away from us and if I would just get moving down the fairway, I would not have been in his way at all, but . . . . Instead of putting the engine in forward to turn and go down the fairway, I put the boat in reverse. The tiller being put to starboard made the boat just back up faster until I realized we were in reverse and weren't going the way I wanted. We bumped into the boat across the fairway from us. We did get away from the boat after the crew fended us off. Instead of just leaving we went back to the boat. The only thing I could see was that his outboard motor had flopped over. Aventura did have a scuff mark from the motor. Later, Warren from Second Half inspected the motor and put it straight. He said he would talk to Mike the owner of the boat and tell him what happened. But It looked like there was no damage and that I would not have to buy the boat.
After that, we went out to find the race. The winds were very light, less than 5 knots. We went ahead and put up the sails and started up river to find the committee boat. There was already a mark placed just out of the entrance to Tomahawk Bay Marina. This is "T" mark. "B" mark was set at the coffer dam at the east end of Tomahawk Island. Poncho was down at Buoy 14. We sailed until 6:10 and then restarted the motor. By then the come-by-me flag was up. We fell in line and got our race sheet to discover we were in the fifth start. I had to reset my count down timer from 20 minutes to 25 minutes.
We discussed tactics. The wind was building. Our race was 14-T-14. Simple short race. I wanted to stay in the center of the river to use the faster current there while going down steam to the windward mark. One possibility was to start on the port tack, but then we would have to dodge traffic at the start. So we joined the rest of the boats on starboard tack at the start. One boat went over early and had to go back. We crossed the line about 4th and at its middle. We sailed over to McCuddy's and tacked to port tack. We dodged the starboard tack boats without incident. Crossed the river and tack to starboard tack, but had not gained enough downstream to make the mark on that tack. So we tacked again about mid river to port tack. We did not have any traffic. We were essentially following Shamrock the whole course. Everyone bunched up at the windward mark. We round fourth and were surprised when the three leaders were blanketed by our sails. They slowed down while we stayed in clear air and actually passed them. We put the spinnaker pole up to port and headed for the committee boat. The other three leaders headed for Buoy 14 which meant they were in the middle and the stronger current. We stayed in the 20 foot depth and slower current. We inched our way ahead of the rest. About a quarter of mile before the finish line, we hit the zone where we get tricked into thinking the wind is dying. There is a zone in the river where the wind from the gorge and the wind from the ocean meet. The sails luff when the boat catches the wind. Sometimes it's enough to fool the skipper into changing sails, thus loosing some momentum only to have to change the sails back. We held our position long enough to cross the finish line first.
Shouts and high fives all around. Not bad for the first race.
We actually had a knot meter this trip. This is only the third head for Aventura. The first one was not working when we bought her. There was a new one in the box that came with her. It was newer and had a different connector for its transducer so it was not just a simple replacement. We installed the new transducer and ran the wire to the meter and installed it. It worked for two seasons, then quit. I repaired it once. Then it quit again. Last year Chuck won a $100 gift certificate at the awards dinner. He gave it to the boat. I used it to by another analog knot meter. This meter had the old connector with it. I plugged the old transducer that was still lying in the fore peak into the newer used meter and it worked. So it is installed now. Still needs calibrating, though. Because when we were doing 5 knots or better it was reading only 3 knots.
While sitting around back at the slip celebrating our win, we toasted our beers with "The only way to go now is down." We all laughed flush with our victory.
Here's the plot of the race. Looks like we need to work on tacking.
Thanks, crew: Chuck, Bill, and KD
