Saturday was Silver Eagle regatta the course was around 46 miles and the Extreme 40 – Smart Recruiters entered its first race. As JP the normal RIB driver was out of town I was on the RIB driving all around the bay and managed to stay almost completely dry. It was a foggy day and the wind built throughout the day but with it being sunny there were a lot of boats out cruising around and some of them got a shock when the Extreme came by them at 20 knots+. Hopefully people will start to learn a little bit about how to deal with the cats on the bay ahead of the America’s Cup. Some boats were a bit like rabbits in the headlights and didn’t do predictable things as they don’t understand the acceleration and the angles the boats are sailing at. The boat had two exciting moments including a very close capsize situation where one of the crew was fully on the side of the boat which probably helped to stop the capsize.

On my ride around the bay I came across a pelican with a broken wing sitting on the surface and felt hopeless wanting to rescue it. Despite living close to the wildlife in South Georgia where there is death everyday I never stop feeling like the need to help even though it is just the natural cycle of things. I couldn’t tell whether it had been intentionally broken by humans and having it bounce around on a RIB going 30 knots for 6 hours would have been worse for it. If I had known about the Bird Rescue center in San Francisco I could have called them but it took a little while at home on the internet to track down some information. Apparently the number to call is (707) 207-0380 ext. 110

Sunday delivered the boat back from Alameda where whe had left it after the race as it was a touch windy to bring it home. We first of all helped out Bridge Runner which is an SL33 by towing them from Nelson’s round to Svendsens. They had torn their transom off on the way back to their berth on Saturday and were taking in water. They limped into Nelson’s but without a tender needed help getting back to Svendsens where they could pull out. So we attached a tow line to their winches and towed them at 18 knots to keep them on a plane and stop water ingressing into the hull. The marine layer had lifted by then as we were a little later than we wanted to be leaving Alameda so were in quite a bit of wind to go back to Richmond the guys headed up to Sausalito and set the gennaker to gybe through Racoon Straights back to Marina Bay. BTW in the above photo the fishing floats on the line is to stop the towing bridle I made from being sucked into the prop just in case you wondered.