[Rhodes22-list] Bad day at the races

[Wally Buck]

So we had our first Saturday of the Month race this weekend. I really needed 
to find some crew on the quick because our club does not allow single handed 
racers when the National Weather Service issues “Wind Advisories”.  One had 
been issued for the entire weekend. I convinced a friend of mine who had 
never been on my boat once before to go out for a little relaxing race.  He 
asked something about the dangers of being on the water with a Wind Advisory 
and I just told him that was why we were in a sailboat. I told him he could 
drink as much beer as he wanted and I would supply soup and sandwiches, it 
would be kind of like a picnic on the lake. He asked if he could bring his 
10 year old and I told him it was way to dangerous for children but I would 
stop by and pick him up at 9 AM.

We had eleven boats go out and the wind was blowing a steady 20 Knots 
according to the Committee Boat.
The 30 minutes sail around was exciting. Boats were rounding up left and 
right and reducing or changing sails.  It was hard to find a sail plan that 
left us somewhat in control and still able to point upwind. My friend took 
the tiller while I missed with the sails.  We finally had things set, 
practiced a few tacks and some jibes. Things were going pretty smooth.

I told my buddy that the only thing I needed him to do for the start was 
watch the clock; mark the time at five minutes, give me a one minute call 
and a 20 second count down. Well we get off to a great start but it was 
because we were 10 seconds off. I hear another racer yell, “you’re early” 
and I look over at Jason and he says, “Well maybe we are early”. Doohh! We 
tack out of the way and since the line was closed we had to sail around the 
starting mark and back through. We confirmed later on that we were indeed 10 
seconds early so it was a good thing we did a restart otherwise we would 
have been DQ.

I race the smallest boat in the fleet and the bigger boats were eating up 
the heavy wind. We were now way behind.  I told Jason not to worry we could 
come in last and still win on corrected time.  So to make up time we 
unfurled both sails. We were doing great making over 5.3 knots up wind. But 
you could see a huge wind line ahead awaiting us once we cleared the point. 
I decided we should not furl but go for it.  We got the crap kicked out of 
us but it was a blast. I thought we were going to flip the thing at least 
three times. The lake claimed my hat, a throw cushion, part of a turkey 
sandwich, and 1.5 beers. We were at 35% heel maybe more but at that point I 
was too busy hanging on to notice. We finished way behind the fleet.

Second race we did a lot better but the bigger boats were loving the wind. 
Most had a reef in the main but they were still flying. I had both sails 
reduced and we mostly kept on balance but those conditions don’t favor the 
R22. Corrected we came in fifth out of 5 in the first race and fourth out of 
5 in the second. A GPS is such a neat gadget. In two races I covered 18.45 
miles with an average speed of 4.5 Knots. We hit a top speed of 7.2 knots.

Man was I worn out. The first time I have ever gotten a blister from sailing 
my R22! The results weren’t pretty but we had a blast.

Wally

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