LMSA - Rum Race

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This week's Wednesday night rum race was almost perfect. The wind was cooperating both in speed and direction making for a pleasant downwind leg and almost a strait shot back to the start/finish. I only had to tack once to come up to the finish mark and probably could have avoided that if I had sailed a little better. Even with the 8 - 10 MPH winds I could have used more ballast in the boat. Reaching, the boat was healed all the way over and I spent much of the return leg with the rail buried in water trying to maintain speed. In those moderate winds the Sea Pearl performed excellent and I had no indications that the boat was on the verge of going over but without an ballast in the boat I was not as fast as I could have been.

I had forgot my GPS so I probably didn't reach or maintain optimal speed but when the race was over I had come within 6 minutes of the winner on corrected time. I was very pleased with that since my previous best was 10 minutes behind the leader. Not too bad considering its a 25 year old used boat with its original sails and I have not done a thing to it since I bought it.

The racing conditions were so good that I was able to take some video and photos while racing. I also went back out after completing the course and shot some more. The link below has photos of other LMSA Rum Race participants. There are a few doubles in different sizes for those who want to download copies.

http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w213/geekp0wer/sailing/lmsa/