Final Day

Friday Aug 28

Written by Jens

Wednesday morning, we were greeted with fog again, at the motel, and at the club. That means that the entire area of St.Margarets Bay is probably fog covered. The race committee said that they would send out some motorboats to scout the area, before they would start the races. After a while, they sent the sailors out. The fog was not as thick as Brad had raced in before, but visibility was only a couple hundred yards at the club, so I wasn’t going to bet that any racing would get done. After Brad sailed off into the fog, I decided to bike ride over to the viewing spot I had found on Tuesday. When I got there, the fog was no better than before. I could not see the fleet of Lasers, I wasn’t even sure where to look. Once in a while, I would catch the glimpse of a boat, but the fog kept swallowing them up. I sat there for a few hours, watching the waves crash on the rocks, before I decided to head back to the club. I just got my bike loaded onto the bike rack on the van, when I noticed a couple of lasers already pulled up onto the shore. Then I see Brad pulling his boat up the hill. I’m confused. Where are all the other boats? Brad was in the 3^rd start, he should have been one of the last ones back in. Not that I was complaining, that meant he could get his leased boat checked out and returned. That was going to be a long lineup. We had already decided that we were going to skip the closing dinner, as we were anxious to get going on our way back home. We got driving at about 5:30 pm, Nova Scotia time. We got passed Montreal by 8:00 am, and got home around 2:30 pm Thursday. Glad to be back.

It’s been quite an experience for Brad and me. I know Brad was disappointed with his overall finish, but he got a chance to play with the big boys.

Written by Brad

So it's the final day of racing and guess what? It's foggy again, but much colder today as well. We sailed out through the thick fog to the other side of the bay where the sun was shining and the wind was blowing. The wind was about 15 knots and building. We were greeted with large steep waves with the occasional really big roller. Another feature to the day was intense amount of weeds in the water. They would literally stop the boat when they got attached to the centerboard and rudder. After waiting for awhile for the Gold and Silver fleet to start it was our turn. I had a decent start but the theme of the regatta of picking the wrong wind shift held for the first upwind leg and I rounded the top mark well back. I lost a few more boats on the downwind leg. I managed to play the shifts well the second upwind and held off the boats behind me finishing much better but still not where I believe I should be placing. At the end of the race I realized my rudder blade had tilted back a fair amount, this is not good for boat speed. My unlucky ways continued when I tried to tighten the rudder blade rope, only to realize my rudder line had broken. I tried to fix this, but with no luck, now I am starting to panic about missing the next race. I notified the race committee about what had happened, and to my surprise, they gave me a new rudder. Now trying to change my rudder and tiller on the water was not the easiest thing to do quickly let alone trying to do this in large waves and strong wind. But I managed to get it done, only to have the bronze fleet race abandoned and our fleet was sent in! Wow talk about being in a panic for nothing.

So all and all I had a lot of fun and know the areas I need to work on. I was not too happy with my overall placement due to the unlucky shifts and things that had happened to me. But all and all it was an awesome experience and I thank everyone for their help and support!!!!!!!!