ahh.. that would be me (look at the mainsail in my icon). My crew is lazy.
Rough day... very little wind coming out of the pass with a strong ingoing tide (and a late start, thanks to crew forgetting trap harness/gloves . Once past the sea buoy things looked up, good wind from wsw and made about 10-12 knots directly at pensacola. At navarre wind died, sat around for a long time (should have tried to make progress toward shore, but got sidetracked fixing broken pin on mainsheet block) and aquiring sunblock (crew mistake again:) froma very nice fisherman.
Wind started building, from WSW again nearing Pensacola, fleww through the past on a nice reach reaching 14-15 knots. Then LONG LONG process of gybing back and forth through ICW with decreasing wind veering W.
The best I can tell is this: 1) bad timing on our part with relatively late start and wasted approx 1 hour fixing block and aquiring sunscreen. 2)should have gone closer to shore to get some seabreeze action 3) need to learn HOW TO GO DOWNWIND BETTER!!! I have the huge flippin jib (nacra exp jib) and we don't seem to use it really well. We finished at 1105pm. Pretty discouraging that I think most everyone else (in the class w/o spin) finished by about 7pm. I guess I shouldn't get on my case too much considering it is only our second race (Juana's regatta one week ago, then the RTI). Any ideas on how to use this boat better downwind owuld be greatly appreciated.
Would I do the RTI again? depends on the wind forecast the PRIOR day!