The winds were coming in from the North @ 24-26 K. Heck JoJo and I had been out in that before with no problem. And this time Bryan was on the boat with me. What could go wrong? Well, we managed to break the boom in half. We have video of the whole thing, @ http://vids.Olson30.com.

This takes us out of Lakefest, but we didn’t have crew anyways.  But I also think this is going to take us out of Leukemia as well.

Let me tell you this, ordering a new one has not been easy…I am not even sure when its going to get here!

We had a new crew, new spinnaker sheets, new video camera, and yummy Bloody Mary’s.  And we only had one close miss with S-Cape.  I am still not sure where they came from!

The starts were pretty good, but in retrospect, I think we had too much sail up. Once we had ripped the Genny and were forced to put up the Jib, we noticed a SURGE in speed. We stayed in the back of the fleet most of the day, but had a good time!

It was good to be on the water again.

This time the Pics are at  Nathan Eaton’s Flickr Account!

Going...Going...

Our GPS Track…

Chirs from Swale challenged us to another race.  When will that boy learn!  This time; it JoJo, Bryan, Mike, his girl Kay, and I crewing Speedy!  You know the routine…we load her up.  Drag her 5 miles to the north side of the lake.  Race…Kick some ass…and head back home…You want to read the whole story?

Well, we started a bout 30 seconds late.  Although I think Geronimo started about a minute in-front of us, and she carries the same Handicap as we do.  What are we going to do!?  Yell at her to come back?

We tried the same thing that we did the last time, we headed to the west shore, while the entire fleet (except Hotter Tuna) headed toward the east shore.  I think the fleet found some better wind.  After we got on our eastern tack, we noticed how far ahead of us the rest of the fleet was.  JESUS!

We were going to need a miracle.  Between Mike and Bryan, we had it.  They got us back into the running with some tactical tacks and we were back in the swing of it.  WoooHooooo.  Around the mark we were third or fourth, but right behind our friends on Swale.  Our spinnaker pops up, and that would be the last Swale would see the front of our boat.  Now we had to keep up with Tuna, reel in S-Cape and another boat.  We gybed, we did all we could, but the best we could do is scratch out a third.  Still in front of Swale, though.  Maybe I should have let Swale win….after all it was Chris’ birthday………NAH! Better Luck Next Time Birthday Boy!!!

Gone! Eat my Wake Swale!

Our GPS Track...This is how Winning is DONE!

So after a hiatus from sailing, we went back out on the water.  It had been a while since we last raced Speedy.  We had some new crew on the boat, and some seasoned.  Bryan is back from Kuwait and he stepped on to race.  This was Lisa’s first time on Speedy, so she was learning how everything worked.

So Saturday night, we (JoJo, Bryan, and I) were out a bit late at the Dubliner.  We did win some cool ass hats though from the Jameson Girls.  WoooHooooo…..I love me some free Shwag!  We did a whole “Team Hat” thing…the girls wore the newly acquired Jameson hats, while Bryan and I took on the military hats he brought back from Kuwait.  We looked good.  But how were we going to sail?

We loaded up Speedy and headed north to play with the Bayview kids.  Did I mention that there was some talk between my crew and Swale’s?  Well…there was a wager made, and there was a round of beers at stake.

The race started and Swale had about a 10 minute head start…we were going to have to work hard to get that boat back in our sights.  The hangover was not helping.  The wind was neither.  We broke off the fleet and headed to the west side of the lake looking to catch a wind-line. We had to get the binoculars out to see Swale…that’s how far ahead of us they were.   There was some real light southern wind.  At times, we were having a dance Party on the deck.  I might have even Moooooned Swale….I can’t say for sure!

They were ahead.  We were trying hard to catch them and the wind-line we thought we saw on the west shore.  Luckily for us, we got a hold of the wind line and headed towards the mark.  And we were going FAST!  By the time we got to the mark, we could see the whole fleet in out proverbial rear view mirror.  we had given every boat but one time….and now we were up front.  Hell YA!  We still have it.  We can rock out a boat race even hung over.

We round the mark.  We hoist the spinnaker.  We now have a spinnaker in the water.  All of a sudden the wind has DIED!  The fleet is slowly making up ground.  We can almost make out faces on Swale.  We take down the chute…we put up the Ginny.  What do you know, we are moving again.  That was a 180 degree wind shift right at the mark.  WOW.  So we are headed toward the finish when the wind shifts again.  It forces us to change sails once again,  Spinnaker is back up and now we are on a tight reach…but we are hauling ass.

We finish.  In First.  Time to collect our winnings, but first we take the boat back to RCYC and put her up.  Then we head to Flying Saucer.  I love nothing more than a nice cold FREE Guinness…Good Try Swale, Better Luck Next Time.

Thanks Anjohn! I appreciate this!

Usually we are hurting for crew…tonight we have 8.  Let me tell ya, it didn’t help.  We almost ran over the Opti’s that were trying to race; and I might have run into the anchored Committee Boat.  Thanks to Anjohn, we have photos.  We quit the race very shortly after that leg.  And the GG Regatta is just around the corner. SHIT!!!

We still BOOOOOZED it up after wards…you should check out the pictures.

We took Speedy to Bayview for the Wednesday Night Races.  The crew was running a bit late, so Jojo and I sailed her down there by ourselves.  It was actually very nice and we got into the groove of handling the boat by ourselves quite quickly.

New crew member joined us tonight, Katy.  She works with Bruce and was brave enough to come out and race.  Boy was she in for a fun evening.  Winds were a bit light and coming out of the east. But the excitement was high.

We barely made it to the start, but we started on time and headed for the first mark.  Actually things were right on, Rented Mule rounded first, then Hotter Tuna, S-Cape (Superman’s Cape) was next, followed by us.    We put up the spinnaker and hauled ass toward the leeward mark.  We almost caught up to S-Cape. We dropped the spinnaker and headed back up wind in pursuit of S-Cape!

We set spinnaker again and rounded the mark, and headed down wind, fast.  So fast that we caught up to S-Cape and tried to over take her on the high side.  After all, we were in a groove, and we were down fast.  Scape decided they did not like that, and headed us UP UP And that’s when we went away.  Now on a tight reach, we stole their wind, sped up, and went right in front of their bow.  Score one for the Good Guys.

At the mark, things did not go as smoothly and we lost ground and a position to S-Cape.  We recovered and actually were in the same position behind S-Cape at the windward mark as the last time.  We had another fantastic spinnaker set and started to chase S-Cape down.  This time I was not going to get pushed up, but I was also not going to come as close to pass him.  We chased him down but he got us at the finish by about 6 seconds.  Too bad they give us time!  And too bad that all the shenanigans caused us to waste the precious time we both give to Swale.

Swale corrected over us once again.  They are our Elenore.  Every time we think we got them, they get by us!  Next time I am not playing these reindeer games with S-Cape.  We had fun and proved that we are a boat that can contend. Pictures are from Dan Malek aboard the slippery Orion. Jojo took the rest. http://pics.MySpeedster.info

Introducing Jake!  He is not only the newest crew member on the boat, but he is also the youngest and lightest.  Makes him the perfect candidate to be our Snacktician and the one to get hoisted up the mast for whatever reason.  Well, only if his mom and dad let him come back!  We raced last night with a light crew (Dwight, Sheryl, Jake and I).  Jake got his feet wet by trimming in the Genoa with Sheryl.  We did alright.  Better than we had the last couple of weeks….at the very least we went to the right marks!

All the pics are @ http://pics.MySpeedster.info

One of the newest members at Rush joined us last night for the race.  David hopped on the an Olson for the first time and learned how uncomfortable the boat is real quick.  One of the cup holders that broke during DRW cut a pretty good chunk out of his calf.  Sorry Bro.

As I was saying, we were to race to the the Sunnyvale mark, then to heath and finish at RCYC.  At B/C the Sunnyvale mark is the third buoy from the shore, but RCYC uses the fifth buoy.  We rounded the mark last needless to say.  But thanks to David’s skills we did not finish last.  We ended up right in the middle of the fleet.

I now have in my possession, both sets of what marks are what.  The RCYC and the B/C versions.  We were too busy to take pics.