CREW Kathleen, Audrey- Foredeck Susan - Main Sheet Steve, Pam, - Jib Sheets Ron - Steering

Yes you read that right - Audrey was back!!! Nansi was unavailable, Chris was out west, and Mike seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Mike, where are you?

WIND AND SAIL SELECTION It was a good 10 to 12 knot breeze out of the SW. We went with the heavy #1.

COURSE Windward/leeward 3x around W-E with start in the east part of bay and weather mark toward the west.

THE COMPETITION Blue Streak (J109), Abracadabra (J35), Alpha Omega (J30), Veloche (C&C33), and Kokoro (J80). A lotta J's.

RACE We entered the race in second overall one point ahead of Alpha Omega in the 3rd series standings. BS was of course first comfortably. So, to maintain that place we needed to beat AO. We got pushed over early at the start by Veloche and assumed that was the end of our race with Alpha when lo and behold there was Alpha coming back too. Blue streak had pushed her over early. Race on.

We split tacks with AO, her going on port to the city and we on starboard to the island. When we both tacked back and crossed again near the weather mark we had both gained on Veloche but both were ahead of us, but not by a lot. We tacked onto the starboard layline and that's when things got weird.

There was a large white Beneteau from RCYC lumbering along on starboard tack just ahead of us. Rather than drop below him into his massive dirty air I tried to go above but he was going just fast enough to make that a long (so it seemed) painful process. All aboard Circe were yelling at him to get out of there but they seemed oblivious and hapless and unable to respond. At that point they seemed to round up a bit just as we got hit with a gust. We heeled enough so the top of our mast hit the outer end of their upper spreader. The last I saw of our electronic wind indicator was it hanging upside down from the top of our mast swaying in the breeze. I eventually asked them to at least luff their sails so we could get past as they were carrying us well past our windward mark. Heeding this request they furled their jib and we managed sail down around their bow to rejoin our race and see Veloce and Alpha already around and well ahead.

We gained on them a bit on the run and rounded the leeward mark about 4 boat lengths behind. We all stayed on port tack toward the city to the starboard layline. But we were pointing higher and going faster so by the time they tacked for the mark below us we tacked ahead of Veloce and to leeward of Alpha. We all laid the mark but we rounded ahead of them both. We stayed that way for the rest of the race gradually increasing our lead. We finished about 30 seconds ahead of Alpha Omega and more ahead of Veloce but well behind both Blue Streak and Abra. We thought we had enough of a lead to beat Alpha on corrected time. but we were wrong, but not by much.

RESULTS Blue Streak was first, as normal, but Alpha beat us by ONE SECOND on corrected time, and Blue Streak by only 18 seconds.

Blue Streak - 0:53:51Alpha

Omega - 0:54:08

Circe - 0:54:09

Abra was 4th, Veloce 5th and KOKORO 6th.

By beating us in the last race of the series Alpha Omega beat us in the series and finished second to our third.

AFTERMATH When we got in, Steve cranked Skipper Ron up the mast to retrieve the remnants of the wind indicator. All that was left was the base and a few strands of wire. Ron phoned the Rigging Shoppe the next morning and they promised to have a replacement at the store by Friday. Steve went in on Saturday and picked it up in preparation for Sunday's race. All lickity split.

Skipper Ron