We were graced with another almost picture perfect evening for a sailboat race tonight. Although the very hot temperature we had of about 35 degrees usually gives us dead calm conditions, tonight it came with a steady 5-8 knot breeze out of the North. The course was SCABAF and with better pressure on the shore the comittee boat was another popular spot on the line. We had a good start closer to the right side just under J and the C+C 30 and flipped over to port as soon as we could to head for the beach near the Grand. Flipping back over to starboard we got tacked on by J and sailed neck and neck for a long way up the first beat. We hit the C mark 3rd just behind GR and J. We threw in a quick gybe set and back to the better pressure on the Eastern shore. Most of the fleet elected to sail a more DDW course and we manage to squeeze in front of everyone else until our paths crossed about 4 minutes from the leward A mark rounding. We got killed with all the dirt coming of the fleet and once again dropped to 3rd for the rounding. Things improved for us on the beat to B mark when GR was forced into a very expensive 3 boat duck with us leading the charge. We did another solid gybe set at B mark and pulled into the 2 position behind J. We were making good gains on J but just couldn't cross them and rounded A mark right on their transom. Although we were only feet away from them on the rounding we knew this would be a huge problem for us. There were no passing lanes on the last beat to the finish so we tried the only thing we could and footed off to get a lane and hope for a left shift on the beat. Unfortunatly it never came and we crossed less than a minute after J. We were quite happy with a second tonight and continue to make gains in our crew work and tactics. I will be heading down to Whidbey Island Race Week sailing on another J80 Skye Rocket and will miss next Wednesday's reagatta as well as the Giants Head Regatta in Summerland so if anyone was pictures or a recap they would like posted email them to me so we can all stay informed.
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