Racing redefined

The term "sailboat racing" needs to be rephrased, or at least modified for those light-to-no-wind days.

On Saturday Dave and I participated in a 14 mile race. There was a nice breeze at the start and since the predictions were for 9 knots, we figured it would build a little as the day went on. Boy were we wrong.

Here's a shot in front of us about 1/3 of the way into the race. There were 3 boats ahead of us at this point. (circled)

And here's one taken behind us as the rest of the fleet rounds Green Island.

Now take a peek at our instrument panel and see how fast we were going. FYI: 1 knot equals 1.15 miles per hour.

And it went downhill from there. At the very end we were going 0.2 knots and that was possibly from large fish swimming underneath the keel, because it certainly wasn't from wind! There wasn't the slightest puff of air anywhere. Several boats dropped out but us die-hards hung in there. It took us a full seven hours to cross the finish line. I have never been so happy to start the engine in all my life. In the end we won second place in our division, took refreshingly cool showers, and went on shore for a wine & pig roast dinner with our fellow sailors. Not too shabby. But on that day "sailboat racing" was definitely an oxymoron.

Late addition: Here's a shot of the fleet docked at Middle Bass Island State Park after the race.