Emerald Cup Regatta

Well it was HOT over the weekend but I couldn't have asked for a better place to be than racing on the lake in the TYC Emerald Cup Regatta against 14 other Santana 20's. The wind was exactly the way we like it… heavy. On Saturday, we sailed in steady 13 knots of wind (15 mph) in the early afternoon. There were three races were we finished in second place twice and won the other race. Both second place finishes were by less that half a boat length. The race we won was epic (an over used term for something legendary and (in the extreme) life threatening). We won the start and reached the first mark with a nice lead. Unfortunately as we approached the rounding on the starboard lay line, we were blown slightly below the mark. Gordon decided we would shoot it -- meaning we'd head up... into the stiff breeze and use our momentum to carry us up and around the mark. Well this has worked before... but not in 13 knots of wind... we stalled.. parked it right at the mark... started drifting backward and hit the mark. If you don't know, hitting the mark is a no-no requiring us to spin a 360 (complete circle). We'd be happy to spin... but we're parked and by this time we're an obstruction to the other boat now trying to round the mark. We eventually drifted back, out of irons and spun our circle. Okay, now we still have to round the mark. On our second attempt... (Don and I couldn't believe it...) we didn't give ourselves enough room and had to shoot it again. This time not so significantly but still this is a s---l---o---w way to round a mark. We finally get around and headed back down the course and there are probably 12 boats in front of us... I think this was a windward leeward, twice around which meant we had lots of racing to go but I still had the thought that this was going to be the race that spoiled the regatta. Later I learned that Gordon had the same thought. Well we passed a bunch of boats on the first run downwind. That's not a huge surprise because we were at the back of the pack... and I notice we were passing several boats that were not flying kites (spinnakers). Getting back to the leaders is not difficult for us. It's passing them... any of them that is difficult. Somehow we kept our heads in the race and clawed our way back and even managed to pass a couple in the lead pack. We rounded the final mark in third place and had a short beat (up wind) to the finish. Apparently, the two boats in front of us were more concerned about each other than either of them were about us. They went right and we did our patented gybe douse and went quickly to the left and the let us go... Amazingly, we crossed the line in first place. Sunday was less windy but still to our liking. The three races earlier in the day were held in 8.5 knots of wind (10 mph). We horizoned everyone in the first race (winning easily), finished in second place in the second race (again by less than half a boat) and played is safe with a thrid place finish in the final race. With six races in the regatta they tossed out everyone's worse finish... a third for us. We won the regatta in our class with 8 points. Second place went to the Crash Test Dummies and third to One Eye Jacq. In addition, Gordon won the perpetual Emerald Cup awarded to the best racer in the entire regatta. Good times. (Pictures soon)