Sperry Challenge

Daniele and I were going to race the Sperry Challenge together.

Jimmy and Tilde asked to join us.

The Sperry Challenge is a charity race to enabling handicap people to  sailing.

Daniele helmed the whole race.  I did the timing and the headsail, Jimmy managed the main.

I put up the 155 main since the forecast called very light winds.

Winds were about 7 knots as we were heading to the start area.

Our start was 4 minutes. We had a slightly messy start as a few boats before us were late.  I think the wind may have shifted. We skimmed by RC.

The boat pointed very well as were closest to the layline to the BC 43 mark. The winds were very shifty but we sped past most of the fleet until we got behind Tara II and Borlean when the winds died.

We were still going upwind and against the current.  We just had to make it past the mark to take an advantage of the current to bring us back.

I made the decision to tack when the mark was within reach.  There were objections but I insisted we take risks.  We were almost 4th or 5th and if we did not take risks, we would fall behind and if we were successful with the risk we could have a podium position. Only Jimmy agreed with me. 

We were making the mark when the wind shifted and we struggled to avoid the mark. We touched and wind our 360.  We did not lose any position doing the 360 but Ghost Owl did pass us.  In fact that was the only boat that passed us in this race. We pasted most other boats.

Our final position was 6 out of 19.  One of Bellum's better races.

We went back to the club had a beer and Jimmy and Tilde left.  We changed the head sail which took a lot of time and then joined the party.  In the end, we did not stay and we went out the bay for spaghetti.

Wind instruments worked better after despidering