On Sunday I doublehanded back from Vallejo on Rhum Boogie in the SSS season closing event. Wayne did his first singlehanded race up to Vallejo on Saturday but I think decided he is more of a social guy then his competitors and so probably will stick to doublehanding!

The start was right off the club and by my watch we were 5 seconds late to start the rest of our class was way early. By mine, Wayne and a few other boats reckoning half the fleet was over early but there wasn’t a recall so off everyone went. Very odd.. We had the ebb with us and as usual in the river one boat would catch a zephyr and come roaring up from behind and pass you and then we would do the same. Once out of the river we went to the center of the channel avoiding the two tankers on a large lift but the people who stayed against the breakwater even it what seemed like less breeze gained. We started to favour the right side of the course and it paid for us until we got to the first marker of the restricted area and then had to move to the south of the shipping lane. We then stayed closer to the lane as there was more wind while others went to the left of the course. The wind came in from the left and we were left hanging out to dry! We had been on starboard tack headed right at point and ended up with a 40 degree left shift putting us in a bad position and in early flood.

We kept trading tacks with the J120 Twist and finally we decided to bail to the left and take the loss getting into 12 feet of water and less tide against us. Twist took it a little too far and ended up on the sand bank taking quite a while to get off on a falling tide. We managed to get some legs when the breeze came up to 11 knots and over took two boats by hoisting our spinnaker for the last 200 yard dash to the finish at RYC. We were first to finish in our class but corrected out in 6th. I think really we should have been in class 2 not the sports boat class as although we look like an open 40 we are desceptively heavy and more like the class 2 boats which included an Azzurra. If we had been in class 2 we would have corrected out 3rd in class. All in all a beautiful sail in nice breeze with a fun short handed partner.