First Win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mille Onde scored her first victory on Saturday, January 16th in the first race of the Winter 6 Pac series hosted by Pacific Sailing Club! Thanks to the fine crew of Larry Palmer, Liz Roberts, David Harper and my darling co-captain Risa K Scott.

It was an interesting race to say the least. I misjudged the start and we were last of five boats over the line. Mille didn't take kindly to being last and started to stretch her sails as we close hauled to the first mark. By the time we rounded the first mark we were in second place to Platform 9 3/4 a Hunter 38. If we could mark their progress we could beat them on corrected time.

As we headed for the second mark, we were presented with a bit of a challenge - a freighter was headed out from the Port of Long Beach and seemed intent on not altering course to let us pass her bow. As much as we did not want to duck her stern and get caught in the wind shadow of her hull, we made the right call and dropped behind the stern. Between the ship and the wind lightening a bit we bobbed around a bit as we tried to make the second mark and did finally round it still in second place.

The leg to the third mark was a broad reach which normally is a fairly fast and comfortable point of sail, but with the wind continuing to lighten, as is often the case in Long Beach as it approaches dark, we continued to mark Platform but didn't make any real progress on them.

After rounding the third mark and starting the sprint for the finish line, we started to make some real progress on Platform as we headed dead down wind (ddw). Due to a combination of good sailing by the crew and Mille's ability to lay her main sail forward against the spreaders, we passed Platform for the win.

Thanks again to the crew - as always we had fun which is the most important outcome (winning feels pretty good too).

Next race is the second in the Winter 6 Pac series on Saturday, January 30th.

What A Disappointment

Many thanks to the crew for the first race of 2010 - Dave Lyon, Larry Palmer, Lauren Johnson, Rick McArdle, Liz Roberts and my co-captain Risa K Scott. We all assembled at the Del Rey Yacht Club on Saturday, January 2nd to participate in the Malibu and Return Race. Bottom line is that we ran out of wind during the second leg and therefore ran out of time to get the race finished within the allotted time frame.

There was a short postponement before the start that pushed all of the classes back about 20 minutes and resulted in about 105 boats milling around for the extended period of time. We had a great start with Risa K at the helm, hitting the leeward end of the line less than 10 seconds after the gun. We were close hauled for the first leg making the turn at the mark in the middle of the pack for our class. We had a total of 16 boats in our class with Mille rating near the middle.

Although the wind forecast was for the winds to lighten to about 5-6 knots for a period of the afternoon followed by them strengthening to 12-15 knots later, after lightening to the projected 5-6 knots in the middle of the second leg, they continued to lighten to a dead calm. At one point it looked like we were in danger of passed by a piece of seaweed! A lengthy discussion ensued about whether to abandon and when to set the time for a decision. We delayed the decision which I think we all knew would happen but no one wanted to make until the last moment based on the possibility of the wind picking up and still be able to make the finish by the cut off time. Several boats in our class and some of the other classes had already dropped out and finally we had to make the call. We then started the iron genoa and headed back to DRYC for a mexican feast.

A disappointing start to the racing season but that is racing in a sailboat. Mille's next race is the first in the Winter 6 Pac series hosted by Pacific Sailing in Long Beach, on Saturday, January 16th.