Ouch! Tonight really did hurt. We had many challenges tonight, not the least of which included my head not being even close to in the game due to another boat related matter. It was great winds for the prestart with perfect 10 knots out of the North with steady pressure across the lake and no big shifts. All that changed about 5 minutes after the gun. We had a decent midline start and tacked to port with the rest of the fleet heading towards Sutherland bay. we saw what looked like a big header hit the fleet ahead and decided to do a quick tack back to starboard to take advantage of the lift heading our way. Unfortunately this is when the wheel fell off of our plan. We were dead in the water with zero wind as we watched all of those boats who had continued East ride the nicest little breeze all the way to the beach and tack to starboard heading Northbound. There was nothing we could do except try not to freak out (ok maybe just me) as the fleet crawled away. We were still sitting in much the same spot as the lead boats sailed into our doldrums after rounding P mark and started to float. The breeze started to fill back in, in puffs of 15 knots and lulls of 0 which made for some very frustrating racing conditions. We had one fun leg with the kite up as we sailed a very hot angle from P to D in about 15 knots of breeze. We would start to plane but as I brought the bow back down to a proper angle it was clear that we were dropping too low on the mark and the kite had to go. We rounded the B mark in the middle of the entire Santana fleet with a few fleet 1 boats and it was a very vocal and crowded rounding with more than a few boats trading paint. Finally a solid beat back to finish at D mark with winds steady about 13 knots and very dark skies due to a several looming thunderstorms. Was it a successful evenings sail for us? Not even close, but it sure beats a day at work!
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