Rusty Racing

Finally got out with regular crew tonight in 15-20kts and had a great race for the first "real" race of the summer . . . pathetic that my first race is in mid July when I'm usually in the water in early April! Had a decent start and was just a few seconds shy of being able to pinch out a couple of boats at the pin. Had a single reef in the main but apparently we didn't have our batten pockets secured properly and shook out the two lower battens while screwing around putting the reef in before the race. It was our first time to ever reef this boat or this main and it was a bit of a cluster. On the first tack we were not happy with it and kept mess ing with it and not paying close enough attention to where we were and ran aground at full steam! Gotta luv the forgiving Chesapeake mud! As soon as we hit I threw her hard over and we pivoted 90 deg to our previous course but were stuck in the mud. By easing the sails we were able to turn the boat around and after a few minutes (without the engine thankfully) we sailed off. We still were able to run down the lead boat 3/4 of the way around the course and passed him on the downwind leg (he rates 132 to our 123 so it should not have been that easy). The next leg was a short upwind leg so I think he corrected over us but we got the "gun" for what it was worth. Really nothing to gloat about as our club is not very competitive anymore. The good racers have all had to quit for one reason or another. That said, it still feels good to overcome that screw up. As one of our old salt buddies always says "It's not about how bad you screw up because you always will have one during a race, it's about how well you recover". It always makes me think differently because I used to assume that everyone that beat us sailed a flawless race and our one screw up cost us when apparently it was our crappy recovery that cost us LOL. Gawd I love these boats in a blow! Paul West Adventure Kwest '80 Cal 39