A3, 2012

Wow these heavy wind Wednesday nights are starting to get expensive.  We managed to blow up an old kite last night on the run from D to C mark but still had a great time.  It was a Northerly 15 pushing 20kts with big rolling waves out of the North that made for some great surfing conditions.  Our course for the night was SPCDXAF and we were the first to start.  We got buried on the starting sequence and had to claw our way out of a second row start but still managed a decent beat to the P mark.  After rounding P we jib reached for a few minutes towards D mark before deciding to throw up the old kite.  We started off great on starboard jibe surfing down some big rollers with the waves and the wind just off our stern.  The trouble started for us after jybing over to port.  The wave angle made it very difficult to avoid a broach every time the stern got lifted out of the water with each passing wave.  I have lots of twist on the main to depower it but we did eventually broach which is when we lost the kite.  It took forever to get the mess of spinnaker shrapnel back in the boat but we did manage to clean things up and head back upwind.  We held on for a 5th place finish.  I never thought I would be praying for lighter winds for next week but perhaps something about 10 knots might be a good compromise.  Oh ya, for sale, one white and blew slightly used spinnaker.

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