We had a good ride. Dire forecasts for the start through midnight with gale warnings, small craft advisories, tornadoes, hail, but no locusts. Of course, none of it materialized. 15 kts NW at the start.  Tactician Dave (“Yoda”) called the start (“Tack the boat, you should.”), Anne kept time, and we were exactly on time at the start. Switched to spinnaker within an hour and carried it through to the end except for a short period in the middle. Wind dropped to the 3- 5 kt range through the night and was dead downwind in the Potomac, the slowest part. We walked past a light Express 30 that was in our class, but then she caught and passed us downwind on the Potomac. When we hardened up, the wind increased to 5-9 kts for the trip up the St. Mary's River, we ran past the Express again, and left her a mile behind by the finish. Dwight did a great job driving; Allen was primary navigator, Matt and Anne trimmed, and the dynamic duo of Josh and Ben ran the front of the boat. The crew was fantastic and all were great contributors.  There is a great shot of us 2:33 into the video link below.  Look for the rainbow spinnaker.

Raising the spinnaker, Josh lost the turtle control line and it ended up flying about half way up the mast. He and Ben entertained us for the next 2 hours trying to throw a heavier line to catch it. When he snagged it on the first set of spreaders, we decided that we had to retrieve it before it got any darker. I went aloft on the spinnaker topping lift because it was the only one left to haul me up. The view from 30’ up the mast was beautiful in the near dark and I was able to retrieve the turtle line and free the line that Josh was playing with.

Bottom line: 15th out of 17 in PHRF B; 75th out of 134 entries. Same class position as last year. I've learned that this boat really likes wind. Since Gov Cup is a light air event and the boat is heavy, we’ll have our work cut out for us. New sails will help a lot, but if we ever get the kind of wind that this boat prefers  (> 10 kts+), we'll do even better. The crew was perfect, so it must the the skipper’s fault. Someone has to let everyone else look good; I guess that's our job. :))