The Dataw Cup

While staying at Dataw, we planned to enter the Dataw Cup race. Last year, Wind Dancer sailed across the finish line in second place, before the PHRF handicaps were applied. This year, we planned to do eevn better. Rick had researched the course and plotted the lines. Our crew was ready. We were ready. Unfortunately, the wind was not ready.

We had planned to raise the spinnaker and sail away from the start, but once again, we were foiled by circumstsance. The 5 minute warning caught us too close to the starting line. We floating sideways down the river and across the starting line about a minute early. With the wind at about 4 knots, and the current against us at 2 and 1/2 knots, it took us three tries and 25 minutes to actually cross the starting line. The wind died entirely for about an hour, as all boats floated merrily down river on current alone. About 3 hours into the race, the race committee decided to cut about 10 miles off the race. Unfortunately, we were so far behind that we couldn't hear the announcement. Our first indication was the steady stream of boats passing us motoring back to the marina. We had to call the committee boat to find out where and when the race was ending. Fortunately, the wind picked up the last few miles and we actually caught one boat at the end. With our crew of Luke and Jan Sand, Kia and Gail Mallott, we had lots of laughs about the day, thinking how to phrase the results to make ourselves look a little better. The best we could come up with is that we placed 4th in our division........which had 4 boats.

We still had a great time and celebrated our loss at the race dinner Saturday night.