The guys on the rail….

I jumped on the Quest 33 for the lightship race on Saturday before heading for the red eye to take me back to Yeoman in St Maarten. Wayne the owner wrote about the race. It started in light air that got lighter right next to the mark so we carried our number one. Then a front came through and the sunny blue skies went away with gusts up to 26 knots making the downwind a fun affair. We ended up peeling the kite but as we only have one spin halyard this involved jib up and kite down and then kite up and jib down. It was a fun race all in all.

For a brief post-mortem — We had a poor start (my fault) but got onto
the right side and wind immediately.  Made the right choices up wind and
sailed well to the lightship, hitting the shifts, keeping in good
pressure and steering well.  (Passing Deception which indeed is a Santa
Cruz 50 was fun.) We also made the right last minute decision to go
south after rounding (notwithstanding the forecast shift to the north,
which never materialized).  We probably should have gone even farther
south for relief from the current, but damn fast boat speed (and fast,
hold on to the boat steering by Ashley) more than made up for the ebb.
(17+ knots!  Loved the spray.)