Lord Strathcona Cup

Pat, Sylvie and Cedric came raced on Bellum for the Lord Strathcona Cup, one of the most prestigious races at the Royal St. Lawrence.

The course was a reverse course starting from the seaway near ile St Bernard.

Winds were light.  We set up the Mylar 155 with the spinnaker.

Poor start.  After about 20 minutes, winds favoured the spinnaker.  We stayed north side of he seaway, sticking close the shoal, winds abeam.  Resisting going down because, that was the best winds and we wanted to keep "space" to go down if wind shifted.

Must have been the right idea since a couple of Lasers did the same thing, but she got caught on the shoals.  We passed her.  Good thing we kept an eye on the chart plotter.

We lowered the spinnaker as winds shifted and died for us. But Mavi Deniz came flying by in a very favourable puff, passing us at blazing speed.

When winds were favourable, we raised the spinnaker again.  Shortly afterwards, the spinnaker halyard pelican hook opened, dropping the spinnaker and snuffer into the drink

We raised the jib and retrieved the wet spinnaker. 

Winds died as we passed wind mill point.  drifted for a while until the winds came up from behind, giving us a push towards two lasers, who did not get the wind yet.\

At 2 PM, Mink called the race.  We were about 1 1/2 miles from the first mark BEA B.  A few hundred yards from Convictus and Blu Nuit.

We motored back to the club and retrieved the lost halyard using Bosen Chair.  The string of the pelican hook seemed caught on between the shroud and mast, opening the hook.

We had a great show up.Maybe 12 boats

 Bellum did very well.  Great Crew, very very focused and present.