LBHIS #2 - Easter Race

On Saturday, we raced in the second race of the Long Beach Harbor Invitational Series. This race was the Easter Race and was hosted by the United States Power Squadron Number 13. Thanks to the crew of Jack and Carolin Lusby, David Harper, Liz Roberts and my darling co-captain Risa K. Scott.

The start for this particular race was on the southeast side of Oil Island Freeman which posed two unique challenges, first it blocked much of the wind and it didn’t allow for a run at the committee boat end of the start line as is the usual starting maneuver. However, even with those challenges David called and helmed us to a good start right in the mix with the rest of our class.

The first leg was a close hauled windward run out towards the Long Beach breakwater. We improved our tacking and were in a comfortable third place at the rounding of the first mark. We then had a downwind leg along the breakwater before we turned towards the coast near the entrance to Alamitos Bay. Considering the difficulties we had the week before, we had a excellent spinnaker hoist and a good run even though the wind was light and puffy and not even close to steady. This makes for more work for the trimmers as they have to be constantly trimming the chute to keep the boat moving as fast as possible. The forecast was for the winds to build to 10-12 knots by this time of the afternoon but it was not to be.

As we made our beat to windward back towards the breakwater and the first mark the pecking order for our class stayed steady with Mille in third place. The winds finally started to fill in on this leg and we were able to make the fourth mark with four very well executed tacks. After rounding the fourth mark we again had a good hoist of the spinnaker and a much steadier run to the fifth mark which was near the Belmont Pier. The practice that we have had as a team is starting to show as we doused the chute right as we rounded the fifth mark and were able to power up for the next to leg. The last two legs were windward beats which for Mille is a good point of sail. We crossed the line still in third place and finished in third based on corrected time.

This was the final race before the Border Run on Saturday, April 24th and 25th. This race starts off the Balboa Pier in Newport Beach, rounds the north Coronado Island and ends in San Diego and will be Mille’s first overnight race – should be exciting.