Sail #32: Earle W. Forshner Memorial Race 1

9.6 nm, 4 knots per hour average speed, 2:19:03 elapsed time

The big guys came out for the Forshner Weekend including the fastest BHYC boats and several visiting boats from Pictou.  We opted not to fly the spinnaker since we were short handed, altho Captain Reid reminds me that I have a cruising spinnaker not a race spinnaker so it really doesn't help us.  The Admiral likely would agree with that, which is why the spinnaker has been nicknamed, "the divorce papers".

Despite finishing 10th, we did finish ahead of a couple of the other boats in our race class and 4 other boats in the cruising class (http://users.eastlink.ca/~mhoyt/bhyc/EF%202011.htm).  Given that the cruising class boats started 10 minutes ahead of us, we did OK, particularly since we didn't break out the spinnaker.  We didn't compete in Race #2 on the second day since we had planned to reunite with the Manuels in Chezzecook.

We did have a bit more excitement than we wanted at the last tack.  We fouled the starboard sheet bad, which meant we had to cut it off about 0.5 nm from the finish line.  To add to the frustration, I couldn't find a knife!

I've asked for one for Christmas!