It was a race day today but only me and Ben showed up to race. Ben took out his new boat, Winds of Freedom, a Beneteau F36.7. Well regardless of the rest of the slackers in the sailing club we went out. Ben with his 6 or 7 crew persons and me all by my lonesome. I tried to convince him to loan me some crew but he’s as hard hearted a pirate as ever lived 🙂
He went and topped off fuel or some such and I headed out for the Inlet. I hung out till he got there and then we headed for the Sherman, a wreck about 6 miles offshore.
I was very happy with my performance.. there is no comparison between a F36.7 and a F235.. The F36.7 PHRF of about 100 or there abouts is a way faster boat than my F235 with a PHRF of 194. It was light winds and dead down wind with cyclic 20 degree wind shifts. I ended up opening the angle I was sailing at to keep speed up an my sails filled. When dead down wind my sails were just flopping around where if I kept about 15 to 20 degrees from true down wind I kept moving along. When winds of freedom who was flying a chute got to the sherman I was only about a mile and a half behind them. With no chute and just my jib poled out I was suprised at how well I had kept up. I think a lot of it was not trying to go dead down wind.
When Ben got to the sherman they jibed the main and heated it up on a beam reach and just disapeared into the distance. The wind had started to rise and they had about 8 knots and building within 20 minutes of reaching the sherman. They probably sailed twice the distance I did and still got back to the docks about 30 minutes after I did. While they reached off, playing with the spinaker, I headed straight back to the inlet so I could make the banquet in time.
Official results of the race.. I came in first in Cruising class 🙂 and Winds of Freedom came in first in Racing 🙂 Cruisings course was a sausage from the inlet to the sherman and back and racing class had a triangle. Both fleets had a down wind start at the same time 🙂 Thats my story and I’m sticking to it!!
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