December 5, 2018-First Practice

wingssail images-lisa diel
Wings Sailing

Racing rolls around each December. The crew, those who summer up north, drift back into town and the rest of us who summered here put away our boat projects and start puttering with rigging and sails and daydreaming about the sleek hulls of the racing boats gliding to windward in Banderas Bay. Our hearts beat with some excitement at those thoughts.

I am one of the latter. I don't leave the bay each summer, and I am here all year, and as the season begins to turn from summer heat to winter coolness each day I spend more time thinking about the sailing; about when we start.

Our first race will be "The Blast", Dec 12 to Dec 14. The crew would be rusty even if we didn't have some new folks. But we do. A few changes, some rotation, and we have a fresh mix-up on the boat. Not the best for a race.

So we scheduled a practice. Weds is good. Everybody has Wednesdays reserved for sailing so even though Mike didn't plan a race we went out.

I pushed the crew a little, we set sail immediately after leaving the harbor and started throwing in tacks. People were startled at the suddenness of it and shook themselves, as if to get the cobwebs out, then they got into it. Judy watched everyone like a hawk and stopped the foul-ups before they could happen. But the sailing went well. Rod and Carol and Pete, the new guy, worked like they'd been together for a decade. Dick had the main flying. The new forward hands, Don and Glenn, scampered around the front and spent time looking aloft so I said, "Set-up the A2 kite, we'll hoist it in 50 meters". I knew it was already set up, I did it before we left the dock. But to them, this was real.

"One boat length!" there was no mark to round but I imagined one, and the kite went up and we turned downwind but it was good that Lynne threw herself on the bag early because that sail almost came out too soon.

Bang, the spinnaker filled and I called for the jib to be dropped. It came down. Minor problem: Judy was caught outside of the spinnaker sheet. I saw her grimace as she yanked her left leg out of the way and she dragged her leg behind her as she regained the foredeck.

"You OK?" She nodded and inspected her leg. A little blood. A rope burn and a scratch. She'll be fine.

"Standby to jibe!".

It happened remarkably smoothly. I thought, that went nice.

"Shift the jib, we have a leeward mark coming up". They dragged the jib to the other side, preparing to re-hoist it.

"Hoist. OK drop the spinnaker." It came down but got wet. If it had been a real race we'd have lost time.

"Let's get that kite packed" and two hands went below deck to deal with a lot of yards of wet spinnaker cloth.

More tacks, again the jib crew was smooth, the tacks fast. We got back to the weather mark and the spinnaker bag came up the bow hatch and flopped on deck. Don hooked it up.

Another set, another jibe. Perfect.

This time we called the finish line and dropped the kite on deck, none of it went into the water.

Done.

Rod hauled the beer chest on deck.

"Good job you guys, great practice."

So next week we race. We're ready.

Fred & Judy, SV Wings, La Cruz

Wings' track