Today dawned foggy and cold, but for me, included a sense of optimism. Finally after days of trouble, we had our boat locked and loaded, nothing to do, and we could just go out and sail, and maybe race a little.
The wind was light, and the tide was coming in strong.
The Race Committee actually delayed starting for about an hour, to enable the wind/current ratio to improve.
BTW yes new iPhone and new case and great pictures, yay.
We became water tourists for a bit, circling around the Bay.
Spot seemed ready for action, enjoying a chance to race.
.
Finally the tide turned, the current slacked, and it was time for racing.
We got a good start – best one of the week – and were off and flying toward cityfront. The left seemed like the way to go. We came into the weather mark in good shape, well in the mix, mid-fleet. Rounded and set, and took off for the middle downwind.
Wait, what? We felt nailed to the water, people were passing us above and below, and the bow was digging. Like the boat was full of water or something?
I might have forgotten to mention, but right before the start we hit another boat. Yes, they were on starboard (had the right-of-way), and in fact, “they” was Mike Martin, the current Worlds leader*. Usually with a collision in 505s there is a lot of yelling but not much damage.
In this case, not much yelling. But:
Yeah, though we didn’t notice it at the moment, the other boat’s bow gashed the side of our boat. And as we were sailing that first weather leg, the bow was filling with water. And I mean filling, even moving all the way back in the boat, we could barely keep the bow out of the waves.
We opened a port in the bow compartment, and water came flooding out. The bailers kicked in, and we were not going to sink. Whew. But … that was the end of the day for us, no way we could keep sailing. Rats!
Ashore, after an assessment, we decided to try a jury rig repair. We pried the shards in the gash together and applied a liberal amount of duct tape:
We then headed back out, having missed the second race, only to learn that the Race Committee had cancelled the third race due to the wind/current ratio moving back in the wrong direction.
Tomorrow is the final day of racing, we’ll have to see whether this jury rig repair holds up. We bailed out the boat and double checked the tape, but it might not hold, and we might fill up with water again. Stay tuned!
* Re: Mike Martin, he had a worse day than we did; after hitting us, he was involved in another worse collision, and had to come in full of water and barely afloat. He’s the race leader but it remains to be seen whether he can continue 😬
San Fran Five-Oh 