So here we are driving up and down the starting line of St. Francis Yacht Clubs race deck waiting for our turn to head out the gate. The wind was probably in the 15 knot range and we were getting excited to round that buoy and feel the white water spray hitting our face. We talked about the start and figured we wanted to try for the pin end and get to the current first. As luck would have it, we were able to do just that and we won the start and footed to the middle of the channel. We even managed to hold off the Olson30s and Antrim27 until we got to the gate.

We traded tacks with Diane as we headed towards the Lightship buoy. Sometimes they were ahead and other times we were. It was a close one for quite awhile. Then the wind started to get a little light and the guys who changed up to their Genoa first seemed to make some huge gains. It was pretty cool to have sailed over 12 miles out the gate and look around and nearly every express was right there. We all rounded the buoy within a couple of minutes, with Baffett in front and Exocet just behind.

Unfortunately the white water never really made it up to our faces, let alone the deck. But there was no rain either, so we weren't complaining too much. Baffett appeared to have some equipment failures as we rounded the mark so we tried to close on him and keep things interesting. We momentarily discussed asking if we could give him a hand or if he wanted us to slow down to make sure he was okay. But we decided to just try to sail by and let him handle it himself. He wasn't going to let that happen easily though. In fact, we may have gained a few boat lengths but we were neck and neck all the way down.

We happened to look over our shoulder and noticed a blue and yellow kite trying to sneak on the inside. And the Maximus crew was doing a darn good job of it! We started driving deeper to hold Maximus off and get on the inside of Baffett. After gybing, Baffett took our stern and was heading for mile rock. We decided to go a little further in for current and a hotter angle. It didn't pay and we met at seal rocks right next to each other. We offered some grey poupon and continued our battle taking turns surfing the waves when we could.

Baffett managed to get a little bit of a lead on us so we had to head up and try to block his wind. At this point we weren't more than a couple hundred yards from the gate and the waves were coming from all sorts of angles. We started driving really deep to close in on them and suddenly found ourselves in a picture perfect round down. Oops!

We very calmly got the boat under control and were even more determined to get back in front. We gybed first after the South tower and Baffett gybed immediately to cover us on the inside. The usual South tower demon had been pretty easy on us this time. As we headed for the beach to get some tidal relief, we noticed there was better pressure on the outside. We drove deep and watched Baffett continue to the inside. We caught a good puff and moved right by him on the outside. Whew!

Once again we looked over our shoulder and saw that blue and yellow kite coming at us with a lot of speed. These Rookies just don't give up. In fact they weren't more than a boat length or two behind Baffett as we took honors at the finish line.

All in all, it was a very fun race and some fabulous competition on the water. Could have had about 10 more knots of wind coming back in, but such is life. --Jason Crowson (Exocet)