After a great lay day where we got the boat back together and ready to race again, day broke with an absolute perfect forcast - sunny skies and 20 knot Westerly!
A peaceful parade out from the dock took us out to the awaiting 8-10 foot swells. This is what the West Coast is all about!
We ran the line and got our bearings early. Remembering that dip starts were all right we knew this start was going to be hairy, though which one hasn't been I guess.
We could start down at the shore and run the line on starboard on a broad reach but would be run over by the faster boats and pushed up into a real mess. We decided to hang around the heavily favoured pin end and try and find a lane over it. We were on time but as predicted the big boys were coming fast from below and behind and we had no option other than to peel away - do a 360 and take second row - which as it turned out was a good place to be.
Just after we started Havoc took a competitor up and nearly forced them into the bell buoy only to have the Sjora brush against them.
So we were off, surfing along at 7-8 knots with jib and main up, weaving between traffic. We were a little slow to get the kite set as we didn't want to push our new sprit too much.
Once we did get things set we took off doing 9-12 knots of boat speed for what seemed like hours, actually it was hours. We were with all of our competition but again, we were not going to win this waterline race. The pole boats could go slightly deeper so we decided to take a bit of a flyer.
We jibed over to set up closer to the Canadian side at the entrance to the Juan de Fuca Straits. This was going to be Night Runners day as she just poled back and went deeper and faster than anyone. We were all playing for 2nd. We could see others and for a while it looked like we were good but as it turned out we were about 15-20 minutes behind them when the lights went out and we started our approach to Race Rocks.
We had switched to the A2 in the late afternoon as the breeze went a little light near dinner time. We also found reception to listen to game 7 of the Canucks vs Bruins game, though as you all know, that wasn't much fun.
This was a glorious sail, I can't say I have ever enjoyed sailing more than this leg. We were moving along at 8-9 knots in 15 knots of breeze effortlessly. Guys were lounging on deck eating and talking, we were in heaven.
Now back to the race, as we approached Race Rocks the tide had turned and we made the mistake of getting too close to shore too soon - roughly 7 miles from Race Passage. We were passed by a couple of boats. And our weather reports were for 25-30 knots coming up in Race Passage. We continued on in low to mid teens of breeze now completely in the dark.
Shortly there after the kite started to flutter telling us the breeze was up, and sure enough we had 20 knots TWS. We called to peel the kite and put the jib up. We jibed out to get a good angle to go through the pass and put the A3 up.
We had an excellent line and didn't jibe again. The wind topped out at 26 knots and we blasted through with no problems.
We had a full moon out, very little sea and slight current against us. We were reaching now @ 9-10 knots of boat speed in 15 - 18 knot of TWS..... the boat was just perfectly balanced. We went from Race Rocks to the finish line and it took us 55 minutes, a distance of roughly 10 nautical miles.......again, the best sail of my life!
Pierre met us at the dock, we tied up across from the Empress and had warm pizza and beer. The perfect end to a perfect days sail.
We finished 8th in this leg and after all we went through, it was a great 8!
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