Puddle Duck Race 3 - Page 3

Here we are at the staring line, 1 minute left to go. There are a couple of common strategies for the starting line, one is to stall your boat out at the line, so that when the start horn goes off, you just sheet in and cross. That is what Ken and David were doing. The other strategy is at the 1 minute horn, you sail away from the starting line for 30 seconds, then turn around and sail back so that you hit the line at full speed. I was trying this, but somehow miss-timed it so I was about 30 seconds late crossing the line.

Doug's boom fell off and he was having a tough time getting it back on, so he was sailing away from the line during the start, and Chuck had wandered over there too, so he was very far from the line during the start. James wasn't too far from the line, and was making progress to the line.

This photo is from the committee boat looking across the starting line, you can see the bouy in the middle right of the photo. David and I had just crossed and we both made a tack to head towards the windward mark.

You can see David holding his sail, the boom broke and he had to hold it the entire time. This is the first time he has sailed his boat, he finished it just in time to run the race.

The wind was shifty, flukey, gusty, and unreliable. Here we were in a lull right at the start, Ken is way ahead of us at this point, he either was catching a seperate puff of wind, or has lassowed a couple of catfish to pull him along.

Our snark friend followed along a bit, but stayed out of the way and didn't steal any wind. You can see he has a Puddle Duck sprit, his sail was under repair with duct tape and a bedsheet.

Just as Jason was coming to the start line, SNAP!!! His rudder broke !!! And he was doing so good !!! Oh well, equipment failures is a part of sailboat racing, just look back to the last america's cup challenge.

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