So this last weekend we were up in San Francisco and raced the Elite Keel Regatta out of SFYC. Looking at the forecasts we were a little nervous seeing calls for 20-25 knots, the last time we has seen these conditions was over a year ago in Santa Cruz. However, despite only Adam and I haven seen these conditions before, Geoff, Christine, and Ricardo all stepped up and we went on to win this regatta. We were blazing fast upwind with our new Ullman's. Scary fast, we started off with a poor start on my part that had us over early at the boat end of the line, but a quick restart and great speed still had us first around the windward mark.
Unfortunately our closest competitor on Full Throttle broke his head stay at the start of racing the second day, and with us taking a bullet in race 4, we had already won the regatta before the last race started. Not a team to give up, we still raced the last race and ended the regatta with another bullet.
While we had a great time, there were a couple of negatives, first our spin halyard is slipping again when it starts really blowing, so we need to fix that. Also, we snagged the windward mark with our keel (our hull didn't hit it, the mark anchor line was stretched out to windward) during the 3rd race, but we were able to recover to finish 2nd place in that race after Bones tried to pinch us out at the finish line and was disqualified from the race.
Big thanks to Geoff Davis, Ricardo Papa, Christine Pai, and Adam Storey for working their asses off and getting us our first win in a one design event! It was great knowing that we were actually out there racing and looking for more speed when a lot of boats where just trying to survive the conditions and get around the course. It was great that the San Diego boat was the one to go up to SF and kick ass in their conditions. Next on the one-design schedule is Long Beach Race Week end of June. I am off to Hawaii for a couple of weeks to spend some time with the wife and for a friend's wedding.
More Pics
Write up from SF Melges Fleet
Results
Peter Lyons of Lyon's Imaging was out shooting photos. Link here.
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