I was fortunate this year to be able to race a beautiful 2004 Alubat Cigale 14. Ariane is 46′ long and very sleek. Her brushed aluminum hull shines and sparkles. I had a five person crew helping including a couple of local racing veterans, my dad, my wife and even my cousin contributed one day! We had fun and got a pretty good work out every day.
There were about 50 boats racing this year which is a great turn out. Day 1 conditions were pretty light most of the day. We ran the genoa upwind and flew the spinnaker down wind. While the wind was light the seas were a little rough especially at the mouth of the inlet. The committee boat had a pretty rough day. They spent a lot of time beam to the seas and were rolling from deck to deck. They ended up having several sick people that were taken off of the boat before the end of the races.The day was cut short at the end of the first race due to the problems on the committee boat. We got back to the dock and cleaned up the boat and went the City Marina for some after race socializing.
Day 2 saw the wind a bit stronger while we were milling about before the start but then right at the start it lightened up. We ran the big headsail most of the time up wind. We tried running the spinnaker on the down wind leg but had some issues so we ended up keeping the genoa up in its place. We did get two races in on Friday and finished up about 3 in the afternoon. When we got back to the dock we cleaned up the boat and ourselves and headed in to the party downtown. We had a good time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones.
We woke up to day 3 with severe thunderstorms rolling through just west of us with possible gusts to 45. About 8 I got the word that the remainder of the offshore racing was cancelled due to severe weather. We hung out on the boat most of the day and relaxed and cleaned up. The weather cleared up but the wind persisted to blow with gusts to 45 all day.
