Maiden Voyage

I think there was a famous writer who once started a story with the line "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times", which would accurately describe our first regatta on BEG (Brown Eyed Girl). Paul and Sandy (Omar Sails) stayed up all night finishing the number two headsail so that we would have a full compliment of sails for the race, and a good thing they did. The winds on the first day stayed mostly in the mid to high teens with some gusts in the 20's and some lulls closer to 12, perfect conditions for the number 2 jib. With a forecast of rain, light wind and more rain, it was with trepidation that I went out for the first race. Once we got the sails up and started playing with sail trim, BEG began to really take off. The first race we were still dodging rain showers and playing with sail trim, I did not notice when our class flag went up, so we made sure to stay on the line, ready to go when the horn started. With one minute left, we were pinned underneath Devil Dog on port tack, and as soon as they tacked for the line, we went with them, hitting the line in the middle, at speed and going the right direction, not a bad beginning. I was still learning how far to turn the wheel for tacks, and everyone was still learning their way around the boat, but we were tacking through 70 degrees and the boat was right on the polars, or a little fast. After the weather mark, there was not 20 seconds of separation between Blue Print, Blue Bayou and Brown Eyed Girl. Blue Bayou had overlap at the mark, so we had to give room, and they went into a jibe set while we did a bear away. At the leeward mark, we led the fleet and never looked back taking line honors in the boats first sail and correcting to second overall behind Devil Dog. Not too shabby.

Race two was s different story. We still got off to a good start, and we were leading at the weather mark again, but disaster struck. I turned us too far down on the hoist, and the main sucked the spinnaker into the headstay and we got the mother of all wraps on the headstay. We tried unsuccessfully to get it cleared, and eventually had to send the chute down below to get the tapes run while Lee straightened up the foredeck. Needless to say we did not get the spinnaker up for the first run, and managed to tear it when it was wrapped on the head stay or blown back into the spreaders. So much for new sails. Polly and Lee went down below to the sail loft (read table) and got a roll of world famous Omar Silver Sail Repair Tape, and gave the spinnaker a great repair, giving us a Frankenstein look. On the second run, during a jybe, I once again turned too far down and we almost got another of those mother of all wraps in the spinnaker, but luckily it came back out. Coming around the leeward mark we dropped the chute and started to weather, but the wind had gone very light. We figured we were so far out at that point, that a little practice was in order so we did a sail change to the number one and stuffed the number two down below, I now know why it is important to put the sail back in the bag before taking it down below, because as soon as the sail was set we could see another squall coming. As I had already torn one new sail on my maiden voyage, I thought it wise not to tempt fate and we did another sail change, but in order to do that we had to sail in the wrong direction for a short time. Once we were able to tack back, the wind had shifted 90 degrees and built to 18, so we were reaching toward the finish at 8 knots. If the race was a half mile longer, I think we would have caught some of the competition, but as it was we were only able to make up enough to correct over Cotton Picker, giving us a 6th place finish. After the first day of racing, it was Devil Dog in first, the Etchells in second and BEG and Blueprint tied for third. After a tough day of racing, we went to the docks, cranked up the AIR CONDITIONING, and had most of Oriental over for a Dark and Stormy to celebrate our first day.

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