Well the Dauphin Island Race went well. There were around 170 boats in
the race! The course started in the center of the North end of Mobile
bay, and went down to end by the ICW by the Dauphin Island bridge. The
first two hours had an almost nonexistent wind from dead astern, and
that wind ended up switching to a 20kt Southeast breeze that made our
Compac 23 rather unhappy. It's shoal draft keel and plumb bow do not mix
with steep chop of the shallow bay and going to windward. Our rudder
kicked up slightly in the chop, which made for exciting weather helm for
the rest of the race. Despite this, we finished first in our class,
completing the 18 mile course in around 5 hours. I saw several Nacra
cats zooming along way ahead, and I definitely miss screaming along at
20 knots boat speed! The race got me motivated to get this whole tiki
thing knocked out, so I should be posting more often from now on.
Yep just the thing to get those build juices flowing, some time at the helm!!!!!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to inspiring build blog entries:)
Take care