Day 5 Curtis Press, one of my best buds and my skipper on the J24's Jay without a Match and Fat Bastard sailed with us as Bow 2. Unlike the other days, we left the harbor with a 10-12 knot breeze out of the south. As we got out to the race course, the seabreeze filled in with a huge right shift and increase in velocity to 15+. We set the chute an planed down to the starting line. Big grins from Dr. Curt!

Had another mediocre but not too horrible start. We're doing better but still have a long way to go to get me up to speed in the starts.

By the time of the start we were up the full 30/28 turns and the breeze at the starting line was over 18. As we headed up the course, the breeze built. I was guessing it was in the mid-twenties. Take a look at this picture to get a sense of the sea state.

Approaching the windward mark the crew asked if we were going to set. We decided to see what our competition in C fleet did. Several of the leaders where already blowing up. We heard a few dismastings reported on the radio. C fleet did not set, nor did we. We still were planing/surfing down at 14-17 knots. We made a mistake and jibed inland . There was less breeze in there and by time we got to the bottom of the course it was back down in the low-twenties. We should have set for the bottom half of the course I think. Or done what we did at Key West on the big air day and set ride it across the course , douse and jibe. Anyway, hindsight is 20-20.

On the second upwind leg, we were driving fairly well, keeping the boat flat as possible with the jib out a bit. Later, Matt Clark said that the leaders were using little vang (we were max vang) He had them tuned with 28/32 per the old Ulman guide. He suspected that the leaders are still tuning this way even though the guide says differently. I also remembered from the previous day that when the boat stops, ease the sheet--flogging the main if need be, drive the jib until the boat is back up to speed then sheet in and head up. Once we started doing that we put Trailblazer away in just a couple of minutes.

As we approached the windward mark, conditions were back up in the high twenties. Wave state was 4-6 feet. Everyone seemed to be struggling just to get around the track with boats getting knocked down repeatedly. I told the crew that as we approached the mark, we would sail clean, no tacking to cover etc, let's just finish the race. We were on port taking our last hitch in, Corinado and Cool Beans were on stbd. Corinado had us, but it looked to Caroline , Curt and I that we had Cool Beans no problem.

Not sure what happened, maybe I was tired, maybe part of my brain was focused on Cool Beans, but I slipped and the wind and waves took us for a little knock down. Now we weren't making it and worse there was no time to duck. I frantically was motioning to Gary, not driving making the situation worse. He realized too late that we weren't going to make it, and although he released the jib and main sheets, I don't think they released the vang. They put a 3" hole in our stbd stern. Rubin's racin' but I wish that one didn't happen. Anyway, did our 360 and pressed on. Too bad, we were beating Nick Pullen at the time, and would have beat them to the finish completing our goals for the regatta.

All in all a hugely fun, hugely valuable regatta. I was skeptical of Santa Cruz after the terrible weather at the North Americans last year. We could not have gotten a better regatta. Looking forward to the next one!