Monday in St. Augustine

A day to regroup. We decided to leave the mooring and take a slip for a day so we could hose down all the salt we picked up transiting the inlet and to work on figuring out why our GPS and autopilot choose to cut out every so often - - - like yesterday from just before the race ended until we pulled into the slip this morning.
Jay rode his bike over and he and Dan spent several hours and several calls to Raymarine customer service before they got it straightened out - - - WE HOPE. It works now anyways. I was busy writing yesterday's blog and manning the control panel as the switches were on and off about 40 times or more! Jay left around two and Dan got back to his original task, washing down the boat. I walked across the bridge with Maureen and Glen to Jay's house, left Glen preparing dinner, and Maureen and I went shopping. Everyone convened at Jay & Pegg's for spicy chicken tacos a la Glen. What a treat! Pete and Kathy leave tomorrow to fly home for Thanksgiving, and the rest of us will start prepping for Thanksgiving at Jay & Pegg's.
~~~_/)~~~M&D
After taking a slip for one day at the St. Augustine Municipal Marina, we watched these busy herons and crane fish off the docks. They didn't care how close we came.

THE RACE

We were determined to make the start of the Commodore's Cup race on time this year, because two years ago we were late to the start. Jay and I went to the 10 o'clock skipper's meeting and picked up course info, scratch sheet and dinner info. We were back aboard and crews disseminated (boys+Jay on Sevilla, girls on Brunelle) in time to make the 11:30 bridge opening. Unfortunately we were rushed enough that I forgot to turn on the on-line GPS and the SPOT tracking. I would have liked to be able to see just how we tacked and the distance we actually traveled over the 6 mile course. When we headed out, we were discouraged that our rating was much lower than Sevilla's (higher is better) and were worried whether we would be able to maintain the difference necessary to beat them on corrected time. We figured we had to give them 30 seconds per mile, or a total of 3 minutes over the 6 mile course.
Once outside the rough waters of the inlet, we raised the main and shut down the engine and realized most of the wind we encountered on the way out was engine driven. We barely had enough speed on to tack! We slowly made our way over to the starting area and studied the line to determine the best approach. When it was our turn (the spinnaker class started 10 minutes before us) we lined ourselves up and were closing in on the line when we heard a horn. We hardened up and thought we were a little late, but charged ahead. We were just settling in to the groove when we heard another horn....THE HORN, oops, we had started on the 1 minute to go horn! When we finally realized we were over early, we tacked around and re-crossed the line .....last. We tacked away from the rest of the fleet fairly early to avoid "dirty air" from the boat in front of us and seemed to be on our own.
Turns out it was a good move because we arrived at the windward mark miles ahead of everyone in our class except for a Hunter 50 (water ballast, 8' draft, sleek looking thing!) who wasn't listed on the scratch sheet, so we didn't know how we stood with them. The rest of the race was two reaching legs, and the wind had picked up a little by then, so we finished around 3:30, less than 2 minutes behind the Hunter 50. We all cheered and were ready to head in when the radio squawked at us - it was the race committee asking us to go pick up the windward mark. OOOOKay we'll go. We fired up the engine and headed east. As we approached the mark we noticed there was one boat rounding in and two more coming up behind us headed for it! We called the committee boat and they verified that there just might be a few more boats, just wait there. Well we circled for almost an hour and contemplated just how we would tackle our chore once the boats had rounded.
Finally around 5:00 the last boat rounded. We positioned Kathy sitting on the rail with one boat hook and Betty on the cockpit coaming with another and Maureen right behind her ready to grab whatever came her way. It took two passes, but on the second one, Kathy hooked the line under the thing and Betty was able to transfer one of the big rings on the corner to Maureen, she hung on for dear life, but it wasn't budging. With the engine in neutral, there was no need for me to remain at the wheel, so I jumped over Maureen and grabbed one of the rings on the outboard corner of this pyramidal monster and heaved. We got it over the lifelines and it took up the whole cockpit! Maureen spent the next half hour wrestling with it trying to deflate it while the rest of us worked on hauling in the miles and miles of anchorline! Once we finally got it aboard, I started up the engine and it took most of the trip in to get all of it under control, air out, lines coiled. WHAT a great crew!!
It was fully dark except for the full moon when we came through the Bridge of Lions at the 6:00 opening and crept through the mooring field to our mooring. Dan was waiting there at the mooring buoy to lend a hand. I shut down the engine at 6:15, and by 6:30 we were all in dinghies heading for the dock on our way the the trophy dinner. It was in full swing when we arrived as it started at 6:00! There was still enough good food for us and we were still chowing down when they started announcing the results. We still weren't sure if we had succeeded in beating the Hunter 50 on corrected time, so it was a long wait as they started with 7th place! When they announced Hunter's Child in 2nd place, we knew we had won! An exciting day for all, but far more satisfying for the girls!

~~~_/)~~~M&D

While the girls had to return and re-cross the starting line (we were over early) Sevilla sailed off to the north with lots of testosterone and too many "cooks" so they finished on hour after we did!

We finally tamed the thing and delivered it to Jay to return to the Yacht Club.

GIRLS RULE!! Our crack female crew won first place in the non-spinnaker class of the Commodore's Cup (7 boats in our class) held by the St. Augustine YC offshore on Sunday.
Top left clockwise: Betty checking out the starting line, Kathy took the helm all the way out through the rock-n-roll inlet. Maureen and Martha check the set of the sails. Sunset as we powered back in after being sent by the RC to retrieve the windward mark...we had over an hour wait out in the slop for the last two boats to round the mark! Maureen wrestles with the BIG YELLOW THING while Betty works on pulling the crappy 80 feet on anchor line aboard. CENTER: THE WINNERS!

Here is the official St. Augustine Yacht Club picture depicting Margo, the Rear Commodore of Sail presenting the crew of Brunelle with the 1st place plaque.