Exciting Weekend of Racing

We participated in the "There and Back" Avalon Regatta hosted by Shoreline Yacht Club this past weekend, scoring a 2nd place finish on Saturday and a 3rd place finish on Sunday. Thanks to the hard work of our crew: Dave Lyon, Larry Palmer, Jim Merk, Lauren Johnson, Rick McArdle and my wonderful co-captain Risa K. Also congratulations to Indigo skippered by Paul Margis on taking first place on both legs as well as overall!

The first race from Long Beach to Long Point Lighthouse on Catalina started Saturday morning under a forecast of rain and dark skies as you can see in the pictures below. However, the worst was under the boat not over it. We left Rainbow Harbor in a river of mud flowing down the river and into the harbor past the Queen Mary. Most starts to races can be exciting but this one was complicated by having to dodge tree trunks. After a good start we tacked three or four times to get out of Queen's Gate and were on our way to Catalina.

The rain held off for most of the race, which was not at all what was predicted but the winds were variable, blowing 15+ knots at times, and dropping to almost none at others. We used all three jibs through a series of 5 sail changes to try and match the conditions. Indigo took off like the race horse that she is and left the rest of the fleet far behind. It became apparent that the race for second was between us and King's Gambit, a Bavarian 38. They headed more south as we choose to tack and stay closer to Catalina Island. After almost 6 hours of sailing we started coming together as we both bore down on the finish line. The heaviest rain squall of the day hid them from our view (as well as the whole Island) but passed in time for both of us to finish only about 5 minutes apart. We took second on corrected time and headed for Avalon and a cold beer and hot dinner at Luau Larry's.

Sunday dawned clear with beautiful blue skies as it usually is after a hard period of rain like we had had the few days before. The winds had kicked up overnight and were blowing about 18-20 knots when we headed out to get ready for the start of the race home. The start of the homeward leg is right at the mouth of Avalon and it is a pursuit race. We headed out ahead of King's Gambit while Indigo had 45+ minutes to kill before they could start trying to run the rest of the fleet down. The winds were very good and relatively steady around 18-20 knots with some gusts running as high as 25 knots coming out of the west northwest. We were on a close reach all the way back to Queen's Gate. We started with a reef in the main and the smallest jib up as the forecast was for 15-25 knots gusting to 35. We never had that but the combination we had up was good as long as the winds stayed above 15. Indigo came screaming by us when we were about 8 miles from the finish and we didn't see them again until we got to Shoreline Yacht Club. As we got closer to Queen's Gate, the wind started to ease but we waited a little too long to shake the reef out of the main and let King's Gambit get by us for second place. We took a third which tied us with King's Gambit for second overall. Much to our surprise, most of the mud we had started in only 28 hours earlier was gone and the bay wasn't too dirty. We made the 23.7 nm trip from Avalon to Queen's Gate in 3 hours, 57 minutes and 5 seconds, a record for Mille!

Thanks again to the crew for their hard work and braving what looked to be very messy sailing conditions when we left the dock Saturday morning. Also thanks to Ray Wilson the PRO for the race from Shoreline Yacht Club and the Race Management Committee from Shoreline for a great event. We will be back and gunning for first next year.

Next race - Winter 6 Pac Race Three hosted by Pacific Sailing on Saturday, February 13th.