Vita est Quoque Brevis Pro Feces Cubile Ovis

Yes hello.

Raceweek starts tomorrow. I've already started posting pictures here. The more observant of you may notice a Tartan amongst the fleet. Also again with the webcam this year. You have to scroll down the page a bit.

Had other things to say, but god only knows what they were.

I'm sure they'll come to me and then I'll come back.

Edit: Stupid a href tags. One day I'll get them right consistantly.

Yesterday I raced. Saw 29 knots of wind which is a lot of wind.

Showed up at the Yacht Club expecting to see 25 knots of wind and to only have 5 crew. Got there, there was Shane and Thom. I said "Hiya. So, we got 25 knots of wind and 5 crew, huh." Shane said... Nope. We have 25 knots of wind and three crew.

So we picked up a fourth from the bar... Johnathan. And the four of us raced our 40 foot sailboat in a small craft advisory type race. FUN!

We didn't fly chute, but that's ok. It would have been tough. No, maybe not tough. It would have been positively horrifically frightening - particularly in those winds. (But I can guarantee if the fourth person on the boat was regular crew Thom would have made us do it anyway.) To put a spinnaker up these things have to happen: The spinnaker pole has to go up - this happens in the pit (me) The pole has to come back (Greg usually does this - but he's been in the Northwest Territories for the best part of the summer, so usually the guy on the Main (Don) or the guy flying the chute (pete) does this.) Then the spinnaker itself goes up - (me and shane) and gets flown (by Pete) and the jib comes down (me and shane again.) Thom needs to be steering the boat. All this happens really really fast. During a gybe set (my personal favourite) the boat gybes and then the spinnaker goes up. That happens really really fast.. like this: We go around the mark (usually with a bunch of boats within 10 feet of us) Thom calls for the gybe, the runners in the back of the boat need to be flipped over (by Lorraine) The main goes crashing over (Don) The jib needs to be gybed, (Pete and Greg, or me when Greg's not around.) Then the pole goes up (me) the pole goes back (greg/don/pete) the chute goes up (me and Shane) the chute gets flown (pete) the jib comes down (me and shane) and then we get set up for another gybe (which is another story again.)

So, take Don, Lorraine, Greg and Pete out of the above story. Replace Don with Johnathan and a Gybe set would have looked something like this: We go around the mark (usually with a bunch of boats within 10 feet of us) Thom calls for the gybe, I run back to the runners, and flip them over The main goes crashing over (Johnathan) I run back to the middle of the boat. The jib needs to be gybed, (me and shane) Then the pole goes up (me) the pole goes back (me/Johnathan) the chute goes up (me and Shane) the chute gets flown (?? - probably why we didn't fly the chute) the jib comes down (me and shane) and then we get set up for another gybe = which would never have been able to happen as the runners need to be flipped and the pole needs to go down and back up at the same time and, ladies and gentlemen, I may be good, but there's no chance in hell I could do that at the same time as the runners are at the very tippy tippy back of the boat and my office is in the middle. And I wonder why I'm so fecking bruised. So, we didn't do all that. We stuck with just a jib and a main, and even then we had to double reef.

But it's like a drug to me. I LOVE it. It makes me grin from ear to ear even when I'm being brusied and battered and having the skin ripped off my fingers. Afterwards we drank rum and ate popcorn and pepperoni. Shane and I (both dressed in full wet gear) played checkers with chocolates on a board I made with erasable marker on the deck (and laughed until I almost peed myself)

And that's the end of my story. Now. If anybody would like to come and crew with us, please contact me. It's much more fun flying a spinnaker than not.