Racing Team: Jeffrey Thompson
The Magothy River Sailing Association’s 2025 Spring Fling is the first race of the season for most. This event is started and finished under the honor system, meaning there is no Race Committee (RC). The starting window was anywhere between 1030-noon on Saturday May 3rd. With 10 boats registered and 4 of them multihulls, we had a race. I reached out to a couple of folks to see if they would be interested in racing, but prior plans took precedence. My wife Sandy reluctantly, but graciously, agreed to go with me. I was figuring I might have to race single handedly, so I was glad she went. Aside from getting serious sunburn, the day was filled with fair winds, following seas and some pretty consistent boat speeds.
We arrived on station (Baltimore Light) right at 10:30 but still had a few things to get set before beginning the race. Once we did, we made for the start line and crossed at 10:41:12 choosing (T)KBT at 17.2NM. The breeze forecasted for 180° put us on a deep reach that saw us heading 30 or so degrees at less than 5kts. Within 15 minutes the wind had clocked around to near 270° coming over Gibson Island and we found ourselves abeam of Mischief (Frers 33) doing 10+ knots. As well as Heyday, the Pearson 30 that started ahead of us by 10 minutes. Approaching Mark W the wind piped up and we reduced sail area, ultimately just flying the mainsail for a short bit. Once we rounded K (G23) and headed for Mark B (G7), off of Rock Hall we were able to put out the jib, and halfway down the leg went out with the screecher again. We saw Cheshire Cat (Stilletto Xr cat) off our starboard beam, and shortly after doused screecher again in preparation of the mark rounding and the beat across to Baltimore Light.
Halfway across to the lighthouse we encountered a tugboat and barge that was headed south to cross paths with us. I fired up Marine Traffic to figure out what the vessel name was, then hailed them on Channel 16 to inform them we would be dipping their stern, to which he replied “Thanks Bud”. That works albeit non-standard radio speak. Once clear of him, we were back on course to Mark T except for the 700 foot freighter that stood between us and the mark. Once clear of him too, we rode his waves and finished a short time later. We finished at 13:21:30 with an elapsed time of 02:40:18, which was the fastest of all the registered boats that day, and hit a top speed of 12.9kts in the process.