Full Tilt Sailing Team

The Pierce Invitational Race

Invitational? I didn't get an invitation, but I showed up anyway!

The day started, much like many Pierce mornings, as a foggy, cloudy, windless mess that was predicted to clear up. We expected this.

In the fog. We just hooked up our chartplotter GPS on a makeshift mount, and it works amazingly well. It really helped our nervousness being in the fog with it. We motored out about 1/2 mile south of Charles Island.

It pretty much looked just like this until well after the appointed starting time of the race had come and gone. While waiting for the wind to come up, we were subjected to showers of freezing May rain. That sucked. Here is Joyce steering with new crewmembers Erich and J.R., along with Chad.

Here's some of the other boats, similarly picking their way through the fog.

The weather cleared, and we got off a downwind start to Pond Point, in very light winds. We were the first boat in our class to get to the mark, but a combination of lack of wind and misjudging the current left us in third place after the rounding. We managed to keep our place and put pressure on the boats that beat us.

We won 3rd-place, and here I am enjoying the sunshine. The sun put in an appearance during the race and decided to stay.

It was brutal having to wait a couple hours for the race to start, then another hour and a half to get the race done. At least the weather turned nice, and we had a lot of beer in the icebox. In fact, we stayed out and sailed around for another hour while quenching our thirst!

posted by CT Bob @ 8:15 PM