Puddle Duck Race 4 - Page 4

So before the race, behind Ken's back, we pledged to stay behind him and just mirror everything he does. We were considering the monofilament line, but that would be too obvious.

Just a minute left till the start, and I am doing my best to shadow him.

I didn't take any pictures at the start, it was a little exciting -- Ken was in the lead, David pulled in right after him, and I was close behind David. We were all on a port tack, and I soon was coming up on David and started to wind shadow him. The little wind we had went back into relapse, so I switched to sit on the downwind side. Unfortunately I couldn't see David anymore because he was on the other side of my sail, which my head was in the middle of. I sailed for another 30 seconds and then leaned down to look under the sail, Oh no!!! Collision alert !!!

David had pulled up a little and was dead off my bow, I swerved left and passed down wind of him. Whew, have already run into Ken this year, didn't want to add another to my hit list.

We all began the long crawl to windward. I did my best to stay on the same tack & heading as Ken, but ke kept pulling away from me. David fell further back, and Doug was so far back I had trouble seeing him at times.

It was really neat to be out with so many other sailboats. At first I was a little concerned that we would get run over or yelled at for being in the way, but the other sailors were very nice and we didn't have any problems.

Ken climbed faster than me today, and this is him on the return, as I am still heading to the windward mark. He shouted a couple of quacks, and I reached out my clenching hand and yelled "Kahhhnnn!!!!!!" (like Kirk in star trek 3).

Crossing the finish line, I received a horn blast. A Stiletto was coming up from the downwind mark and came across the line. That will probably be the only time I cross any line ahead of a Stiletto. :)

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