Day 2 - Monday
PWH writes
Overnight, a cold front had passed over Miami. All things are, of course, relative. By cold, we mean it had gone down to 60degF.
After a 10:15 launch, we made our way to the sailing area, arriving at 11:30. The race started promptly at 12:00.
The first leg was due North, heading towards downtown Miami. With the winds coming off the shore, the wind direction shifting constantly.
To cut a long story short, we went out to the right of the course, towards Key Biscayne. Unfortunately, the correct way to go (it turned out) was inshore (West, towards the mainland). Although we were sailing quite well in our group, the boats who went inshore got a huge windshift to their benefit – and those who went out to sea (including us) were left a long way behind.
We were still 10 minutes from the first mark when the first boats were rounding! By the time we got to the buoy we were in the late 60s. From then on, it was a constant battle to try to catch up places – which is not easy in this high standard of sailing. Over the next four legs of the course, we did everything we could to improve our position, and gradually worked our way up to 51st – not great, but it could have been a lot worse.
The Irish team who had won yesterday finished four places behind us. While one of the boats we spent much of the race with turned out to be Marc Pickel, Germany’s representative at the Athens Olympics and Number One Star sailor. He finished a couple of places ahead of us.
The good news was that the race was won by a local “amateur” sailor – Jock Kohlas, who runs the local US sailing centre. Jock is being crewed this week by our friend Larry Scott, from Canada, who has been looking after our boat (Georgina) for the past couple of years. He will take her to Canada after this event is over and use her for the summer in Ontario. Larry sailed for Canada in the 1972 Olympics (in a Tempest) so has a lot of experience and expertise. But to win a race at the Bacardi, ahead of so many professional sailors, Olympic medallists and international champions, is a great achievement. Everyone was really pleased at this result.
The correct way up the beats was as follows. Leg 1 - hard left - Jock and Larry did it in one tack. Leg 2 - hard right. Leg 3 - shifts up the middle. We got legs 2 and 3 right, and leg 1 completely wrong.