Day 11: Race Day - 29th Annual Malaspina Regatta

It's race day!

Getting the Lady Jayne ready for the Big Race!

Pre-race selfie as our Honda lawnmower engine putt-putts us out of the harbour. Dragon class sailboats do not regularly have an engine. 

The view through a telephoto lens from the cabin as we mill about positioning ourselves fort he start. We are the small sail below the brown sail in the centre. Actually, upon further inspection, that 'blob' of sails below the brown sail is two boats. We are heading towards the right as a boat passes on our left travelling towards us. We are very, very small. Fun times!

And, we are off! We are somewhere near the left-hand side, likely to the right of the tall boat.

We are enjoying our good positioning just after crossing the start line.

Dad can not locate the coordinates on his GPS for the first mark; however, we know which old clear cut on Texada Island to head towards.  Half way across we can finally spot the mark and we are in great positioning.   We had fun with some large boats trying to over take us on the windward side.  We luffed them up and forced them to pass behind. This way, when they pass they will not blanket us. Follow that Thunderbird!

Rounding the first mark on a gybe Dad clips in and goes up front to secure the whisker pole.  Oops, it slips through his hands and is passing us on the port side before we know it.  Do we turn around? NO! I will make another one.  Good thing our 'oh shit' docking pole does the trick.  Additionally, as we rounded the first mark a very large boat in front of us completed an uncontrolled gybe which caused them to turn too far and cross our path at close quarters. This could have been a deadly interaction had we been side by side. This is no exaggeration. Their bow would have ridden right up and over us. So, we are thankful. 

This downward leg of the journey is calm as the wind pushes us from behind. Those big boats have so much more sail than we do but we have expert steering and stay ahead of most.

Dad is always checking the set of our sails for maximum output. 

Now it is time to eat lunch and enjoy the view. 

Cousin Mark is on a borrowed boat but he has whipped his crew into action and have raised the spinnaker.  They are soon to overtake us.

Keeping that spinnaker full is a tricky business. 

We happily heckle them as they overtake us.

Looking good!

All done!  I have no pictures after we rounded the second mark.  The winds picked up and we had our hands full. 

After the race we have to swap war stories of course.

We gather at Fisherman's Resort for the post race BBQ.

Mom and I pre-open the cheese slices to help things move along in the buffet line. 

We all have a good appetite after the race.

We finished 10th out of 29 boats today and had a wonderful race.  No trophy today as the Thunderbird stole the show in our division.  It was a very tight race though with most of the boats in our division finishing with 10 minutes of each other, on corrected time, in a 2 hour race. 

Ah, evening campfire time.