Full Tilt Sailing Team

Crewing for "Wild Eyes"

Today was the Windjammers edition of The Last Chance Regatta.

I crewed for Pete and Teri on their Quest 33 "Wild Eyes".

This is a file image of Paul trimming the spinnaker from last year on Wild Eyes. The weather today wasn't nearly as nice; we all wore our foulies and inflatable life vests. Crew today consisted of Lisa, Paul, Lee, J.R. (from "Full Tilt") and myself.

UPDATE: Here's a photo of Wild Eyes taken by Greg Geiger; see link below for more photos and ordering information.

Wind was out of the west at about 15-25. The course started in the Gulf, then out around Middle Ground, then to Pond Point, then to the Charles Island green can for the finish. The wind was honking most of the day, and the skies were threatening rain even though it only spritzed on us a bit.

We rounded Middle Ground and started hauling ass downwind with a good-sized #2 spinner. On four foot rollers we surfed the 8 miles to Pond Point in about 40 minutes, hitting sustained speeds of 13-14 knots and topping 15 on a few occasions. Damn, was THAT exciting!

We even rounded up a bit when our bow caught up with a five-foot wave, slamming us to a near-stop, pouring hundreds of gallons of green water down the windward deck and through the cockpit (handy that we had an open transomed boat), which caused the end of the boom to splash into the water, and J.R. sitting next to me to slide across the cockpit to leeward under the helm! Yowsah!

We finished the race in brisk conditions right behind "Dr. Evil" (who beat us scratch), and later on we found that it's likely we got a 2nd place finish, ahead of "Secret" and "XSNRG" on corrected time. Great race Teri and Pete!

Oh, and my absolute favorite line of the day: after tying up at the MYC and peeling ourselves out of our foulies, I commented on the several horizontal bruises on the front of Teri's thighs:

"You look like you got caught shoplifting in Thailand."

Photos of the race are available for download and purchase from GREGEIGER CO. UTD. INC.

posted by CT Bob @ 11:23 PM