Great race!

Deb and Andrew brought their new boat, Delta G a Hanse 37, to QCYC to join us for this year's Women Skippers Race.  It turned out that Prime Interest was one of only 4 boats in the 29 feet and over category.  We got over the line about a minute after the rest of the group, which was fine with me.  With the wind from the south, we had to tack through the gap, with a freighter approaching the outer end of the shipping channel.  With 3 boats tacking close to each other, I was pretty nervous and wanting to get out of the way of the others, but Ed and Andrew encouraged me to hold my course and we were able to get ourselves out of the channel with only one boat still ahead of us. 

Deb concentrating

 I couldn't believe we passed that boat, and rounded the Gibraltar mark first!  On the way back, the wind suddenly got really light going back through the channel, and it felt like we were stopped.  We managed to cross the finish line over 5 minutes ahead of the next boat, Wild Jasmine, but with our boat's PHRF rating (handicap), we ended up second on corrected time.  We later learned that Ascend, a normally fast racing boat, had a branch caught on their rudder, which is likely why we managed to pass them. The race flags for the WSR are usually handed out on the lawn after the race, but this year, the club is having special 125th anniversary race flags printed, which will be handed out at the Awards Banquet at the end of the season.  I guess we'll have to go this year.