Summary

Perry was not available for the weekend as he had previous commitments with family and Friends. However, he graciously allowed the boat to go out with Bob at the helm.

Race 1: Madeline Cup. Organized by the Madeline Island Yacht Club.

Crew left the dock a little after 08:45 with little expectation of racing: the water between Bayfield and the Island looked like glass. However the crew was determined to practice, so we put it several pairs of tacks while generating our own wind motoring ahead. Then came the challenge of practicing spinnaker gybes, while motoring slowly backwards!

We knew the wind was light, but the prospect of looking at a the “wee-o-meter” reading 0.00 all day was too much for Andy to take, So he added to his growing list of crazy pre-start antics by stripping off and swimming under to boat to free the transducer! Apparently the photos are “epic”.

The race started in 3 knots of breeze, which started to fill in around Grants Point. We made steady progress up the east side of the island and generally avoided the temptation to get too close, despite the apparent lift. The good news is that at 14:00, we could still actually see Chewy!

As rounded the waypoint at north end of the Island in the mid afternoon, we set the chute in a dieing breeze and headed for home, pursued by Stars-and-Stripes (our scratch competition) and Wylie. After three hours of solid gybes, we finished in 6th place, ahead of both of them shortly after 18:00

Sunday:
Andy’s bacon sandwiches for the early risers. Another 08:00 dock time, and on the water by 09:00, followed by a solid hour of practice tacks and gybes in 5-10 knots of breeze.

Race 1: W2, 2nm, 190 degrees, 5-15 knots.
Good start by Bob and Val: on the line on time, and with speed! We had a solid upwind with great pointing, and good boat speed. By the time we arrived at the windward for the first time, the breeze had picked up to 12-15, which gave us the downwind advantage over the asym boats, as we could head down as deep as 160 degrees. Another two good legs and we could see ZigZag heading to the finish. We calculated we needed 1m12s to beat them. We crossed 40 seconds behind them for what we thought was third. We later discovered we’d corrected over Chippewa for second!

Race 2: W2, 2nm, 190 degrees, 5-15 knots.
A much closer start, with Bob and Val mixing up with the big boys. A close cross with Red Hawk quickened the heart-rate! But it all turned out OK. It was tough to repeat the first race. A couple of scrappy gybes cost us time, and we finished fifth.

Church was fun, as we discovered the news about our second place!

Monday:
A much less promising forecast of 5knots from the SW decreasing in the late morning and backing to E. More practice trying to work on our gybes in the very light air.

Race 3: W2, 1.25nm, 185 degrees, 0-5 knots. Shortened to W1.5 0.75nm.
Wind died as we tried to make it to the line, so we were a little late, but still in company.

Upwind was excruciatingly slow, with a lot of lowside hiking and tweaking of everything to try to squeeze out every tenth of boat speed. Finally made it the windward mark, close to Voyager, and draped the chute over the forestay as we tried to get it to fly. Arrived at the leeward mark in plenty of company including Voyager, Chippewa, Undaunted, and Wylie all within a few of boat lengths. Chippy went course right and caught breeze most of us did not see.

Red Hawk and Undaunted called it a day halfway up the leg, while Angisina continued to finish sixth.

We finished an outstanding weekend of sailing in fifth place out of nine! Shame Perry was not there to witness it.

Photo Caption: (Clockwise from top left) Bret, Sandi, Bob, Mike, Andy, Barnie, Valerie, Maureen, Nick-the-Main™