Although this was only my second attempt at the FCYC/RNSA single handed race it is undoubtedly one of my favorite races of the year. The race starts at the Point Grey Bellboy just off of UBC and takes the boats around a mark just off of Bowen island and then to a finish line just off of Newcastle island near Nanaimo. Sailing alone is generally pretty easy; racing alone is not. Racing alone means that there is nobody with you to bounce ideas off of, nobody to verify your assumptions are correct and no one with whom you can chat idly with to drown out your own thoughts...
This year the race started in light winds with little excitement (with the exception of Al on Bedlam II spearing the committee boat but I'll leave that for his blog). As has become a tradition with this race I was sailing along, madly trying to keep the boat going in straight line whilst I was trying to put the marks in my GPS - Something any smart skipper would have done the night before. I managed to get all of the info inputted without killing myself or smacking any other boats despite my GPS having the least user intuitive input system ever built, whereby you have to input a seemingly endless string of numbers with a single, over sensitive, knob. With the GPS programed I settled in and focused on sailing. As the fleet approached the first mark the wind was light. The bigger boats were having a tough time moving and the smaller lighter boats were all trying to do anything possible to keep their momentum up. Somehow I managed to stay in a very isolated wind channel which was taking me up the sunshine coast. Not exactly the right direction but better than going backwards towards the start.
This year the race started in light winds with little excitement (with the exception of Al on Bedlam II spearing the committee boat but I'll leave that for his blog). As has become a tradition with this race I was sailing along, madly trying to keep the boat going in straight line whilst I was trying to put the marks in my GPS - Something any smart skipper would have done the night before. I managed to get all of the info inputted without killing myself or smacking any other boats despite my GPS having the least user intuitive input system ever built, whereby you have to input a seemingly endless string of numbers with a single, over sensitive, knob. With the GPS programed I settled in and focused on sailing. As the fleet approached the first mark the wind was light. The bigger boats were having a tough time moving and the smaller lighter boats were all trying to do anything possible to keep their momentum up. Somehow I managed to stay in a very isolated wind channel which was taking me up the sunshine coast. Not exactly the right direction but better than going backwards towards the start.
