Queenstown

A raucous afternoon poker game lead to an enjoyable dinner cooked by Mr. Whaley. Spaghetti and salad (cooked with directions from Crystal) turned out great. FYI: After actually carrying the poker set around, I have decided to forbid it on any more races; it must weigh 30 lbs!
:-)

The next morning the wind was out of the north, making the race a spinnaker start. Circling around and coming across the line with speed, we had a great start leading the pack. CB, with his big spinnaker, took us over before the next mark, and as the spinnaker was flown for the rest of the race, Scott lead the charge to catch 'em.

Having spent a fair amount of the summer look at CB's spinnaker going by us, I feel pretty confident that it has bigger "shoulders" than ours. I'm convinced that makes a pretty big difference downwind--especially the closer to dead downwind you are.

It was a valent effort, and as the last leg had us on a pretty tight reach, we started to catch CB. Were we catching him fast enough, though?

With a sudden *TWANG*, the port spinnaker turning block exploded, shooting the sheave over my left ear and about 30 feet in front of the boat! With some quick work, we were able to keep things going, but we lots our opportunity to catch Infinty.

Needless to say, since the same block had come apart its first day on the job during the NOOD I was frustrated to have it happen again. I'm working with Fawcetts to come up with a solution...

We enjoyed a nice sail back home. It was a day well spent on the water with good friends.

TC went high for some unknown reason.

--Tim