What a race night. Beautiful wind and lots of boats. We had new crew this evening, Cliff and Ethel. She was a coworker of Hannah's. While Cliff worked until last Wednesday. They were a game crew. It was their first time on a "little" sail boat. They had done a sail on the Zodiac in the Salish Sea, but never on a 28' sloop.
The afternoon when we got to the boat, there was no wind to speak of. By the time the race started we had 8 knots. We got out of the marina about 5:15 and set sails almost immediately. We had to sail by the committee boat twice because our course was not on the board the first time. The course was Start-2-14-2-C-Finish. A long course for us, but doable.
About ten minutes before our start, I noticed that the main sheet was being held to the boom by a accidental line. The cleat on the boom had fallen off. She's an old boat. Things like this happen. I took a short line and tied the sheet's shackle to the main sail around the boom. I will have to put in helicoils and new machine screws. The temporary repair was done before the 4 minute warning.
We were second around the first windward mark and caught up to the first boat, Estrella Del Mar. We passed her for a time, but eventually he passed us. We were trying to get to shallower waters, but they did not help and we gradually lost time. We put up the whisker pole right after the mark and kept it up until before the 14. We lost about 4 boat lengths in taking down the pole. I put the pole on the deck and clipped it to a halyard at the base of the mast.
We round 14 and went to port close hauled. Went over to the Washington side and then tacked to starboard close hauled. We were making good time but not as good as Estrella. We were getting close to mark 3 when two J24's passed behind use after rounding their mark. I heard one of the skippers of one of those boats yell something. About that time a J24 appeared really close to us in front of us on starboard tack. We hit them abaft the beam in their cockpit area. Aventura rode up their side bending two stanchions. A phone call to the owner of the other boat revealed he had an injury to his knee and the traveler on the boat. They were pretty shaken by the collision. I made sure they were OK and continued racing. The anchor was out of place but still with the boat and the whisker pole was bent. We both were not looking behind our head sails. We both were surprised.
The race was shortened to Buoy 2 and we placed second. Furled our sails and went back to the marina. Cliff is a machinist and took a look at the pole. I got him a few tools and he was able to affect a repair. The pole is now a little shorter but long enough to do the job.
I placed an insurance claim on the incident, since the other boat owner said he was going to place a claim.
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