The wind was light and variable from the start of the night. We hoisted the main in the harbor in a light NW breeze. After sailing by my brother's boat (the one he plans to sail on with his family for a year), we headed out to the course in a light southerly. We made one knot east and the current pulled us at 1 knot south. This gave us the southeast course we needed to get to H. Once there, the wind totally died.
Some showers came through and brought in the northeast breeze. The Race Marshal left the line skewed and rolled right into a start. With the right side favored, boats would pile up at that end. For our start, we had two boats barge in on us. It was unfortunate as we were in line for a great start, but the barging boats fouled us and our start was made worse. It was blatant barging. I protested. On the way in, the main barging boat sailed by to acknowledge they would take the penalty. At least some justice would be served for their foul that gave them a significant advantage over the rest of the fleet.
We still managed to stay ahead of the boats and rounded C in first. The drift across to F was long and slow. With the current threatening to sweep us right down river, we had to do all we could to make F. As we got closer, we needed a miracle to get around F and that miracle came in the form of a 45 degree shift from northwest to north. We rounded F and barely hung on to first at the finish. Merlin made a nice charge at us towards the end, but ran out of runway and were not able to pass us.
It was the longest race of the year. It was nice to spend the whole time racing, but it cut into my post race beers. Having already hurt my back loading the beer cooler onto the boat, it was ironic that we barely touched them.
Here are some pictures of the rainbow during the race.
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