Today began a bit raw with drizzling rain and kept that way throughout the day. We suited and layered up and sailed out to Potters Cove for Day 5 of racing.

The breeze was much like the end of our last race so we kept the rig tuned the same. There was a gradient breeze of 6-10 knots was from the east north east and the temp was in the high 50’s. The race committee gave us a new course with upwind finishes, this probably meant that race committee was going to do more than two races to catch up. We were right we had 3 races.

We won the first race with Scott & Julia 2nd, Karen & J.P third. The second race was a bit of a nail biter where we found the seaweed again and after a slow downwind, rounded the leeward mark, went a few boatlengths and did a maneuver called a “backdown”. In a backdown, you not only stop the boat from racing, but you push the boom AT the wind and make the boat go backwards. As you might imagine, it’s not fast! We felt the boat was going better again, but one boat passed us. We needed to catch up. We realized we may ruin our first place record but that wasn’t as important as finishing ahead of our major competitor, and we did we finished second. Julia and Scott of NJ stayed out of the adverse current on the way upwind, while we battled it out to pass Karen and J.P. which we did. Scott & Julia passed us both at the top of the beat to finish first and were so happy, it was great to see.

Our last race, race three, we also won, with Scott and Julia behind us and Karen & J.P. again in third. The day was 1-2-1 and we have now 10 pts with a throw-out score and are also 10 points ahead of second place. There’s a great battle developing for second and third, with only one point between them.

There was an article in Thursday’s Salem News Sports section on the racing. Look it up if you can!