Day 1 - June 19

Day 1 - June 19

Up early for final enjoyment of shore facilities, on to Kate’s for breakfast sandwiches, and a final provisioning of ginger ale before the rush for launch shuttles to return us to the vessel.

We passed a lady on the return who exclaimed: “Never let a man provision a boat: nothing for breakfast!”.  She had two large boxes of cereal, and the last four yogurts from the general store.  With a strong shore support crew, Mahina Kai rarely has issues with lack of provisions.  Back to the boat, everything stowed, and cast off for 11:00 check-in, and 13:00 start for the B class. 

In this race, there is a starting box behind the start-line, and only the boats in a specific class can be within the box immediately prior to their start.  With four classes, this makes for an orderly progression, although there is much maneuvering for position in the box.  The Race Committee uses a canon to signal various intervals before the start, and a horn to signal the start of each class.  In our class one vessel was over the start-line early, and this involves (I’m not making this up) the Race Committee firing a shotgun signal.  This caused me a little concern, since our vessel was closest to, and downrange of, the Committee vessel.  Hopefully they were using only birdshot to lightly pepper the offending vessel.  Clearly this is a Race Committee that takes rules infractions seriously!

The wind for good for the first few hours, but faded in the afternoon, and our smaller heavy-weather jib did not give us the needed speed to satisfy this eager crew, so we decided to swap that sail back to our full jib.  Speeds were much improved in the lighter winds, and we were able to advance in the pack.

Dinner of Shepard’s Pie, and the fitting Cookie of the Day: Sailboats.

The first sunset was accompanied by a passing whale spout, and later a small rain shower passed over, causing variable winds which failed for a while before returning.

#SVMahinaKai #MBR2015