Nearly nailed the start
Dion was out of town today so he entrusted me with the helm on Red Baron. Gusty conditions on the river, so after a bit of a tight launch off the dock we set out with a full main and a reef. Gusts continued to build into the low 20s towards race time, so we put in a reef to keep the boat manageable.
With a little luck I pulled off a timely start, and we kept the boat powered up on the windward leg. We took an early-ish tack to clear air, and by the first rounding we were still ahead of much of the fleet. As the wind was periodically light going back downwind, we sailed gybe angles to keep the 3 powered up. We found a bit of unnecessary yelling at the leeward mark, and I took a wide rounding to avoid an altercation with Harm's Way. We sailed another quick beating leg, and rounded to a deep angle to the finish. We were able to just hold off Splash, and beat them boat for boat by inches. It feels pretty good to beat a well-sailed J/105!
We took third for the race and third overall for the series. Not bad for my first time fully running a keelboat in quite a while. Other than the gusts it was a gorgeous sunny day and we had a fantastic time out on the water. A great way to wrap up the spring frostbite series!