Day 1: Sunday 4 March

There are some good reports on the star class web site. Here is our experience.

PWH writes

The morning dawned bright and warm - day 1 of the Bacardi, full of anticipation!

Sailing takes place off Coconut Grove, which is about 10 miles south of Miami Downtown and Miami Beach. To the north of the sailing is the Port of Miami, to the North East is Key Biscayne, home to the Bee Gees and a number of the world’s top tennis and golf players.

Stars are launched from their trailers using dockside cranes. It takes about an hour to sail to the racing area, so we left at 10:30, to be ready for the 12:00 start.

Unusually (?), we were one of the last to launch. And the wind died, so it began to look like we would be late.

Fortunately, David Howlett arrived in his RIB and gave us a high speed tow to the starting area.

We sailed around for a while, checking the start line and the first leg. After a couple of postponements, we got sailing under a black flag (1 minute rule). Our start wasn’t great, but this was because a lot of the boats near us seemed to be way over the line. (Subsequently we found out that 20 boats had been disqualified for being over the line in the 1 minute before the start)

Course 3 of the Star Class is beat/run/beat/run/beat. At the windward mark there is a spreader mark to the side. There are two leeward buoys. You go through the gap between them and round either one.

The wind increased steadily throughout the race. At the start it was 4 or 5 knots. By the end it was probably about 14 or 15 knots

We were lying about 40th for most of the race, but the situation worsened half way through when the clew outhaul (the wire which holds the sail out at the end of the boom) pulled out of its splice. This was annoying to say the least, since it had been replaced last week. Michael suggested retiring, but I told him to go to the back of the boat and not come back till he had sorted it out. Which he eventually did.
But by that time we had lost 10 places and were lying in the 50s.

Fortunately, we began to get going after that – and managed to get past a dozen or so boats and finish 41st. Not a great result, but competition is tough and it could have been much worse.

After the finish, it takes another hour to sail ashore.

Then once in, there is a queue to haul the boats out and on to the trailers. This can take another hour. Once back in our boat space, we had to repair the broken fitting on the boom. Fortunately, there were no shortage of helpers and after an hour or so of activity, the boom was fixed.