Chris,

My apologizes .... I missed you going by us .... I had my head down busily grinding away on the main-traveler. What did you do? round the "Spider" mark and stay left in the shallow water? We were so focused on Zaraffa you went by w/o me realizing it. We were making TWO BIG boat handling mistakes we realized later that caused us to have "issues" tacking; first was we were not pushing the mast rotator over/through and locking it in place ... secondly this caused us to have to dump the main traveler and it would take forever to GRIND the traveler back up to center!!!! We have modified our tacking procedure w/ (2) people working the rotator and kicking it through (1/side)... this means we only drop the traveler 12" and then grind it up .... we are now much quicker tacking and axccelerating back up to speed!!! I can't say that we would beat Zaraffa to the line now ... but they will have to battle much harder and we would have been a heck of alot closer!!! (they steamrolled us like the 5:10 Express!!!) It was the first time any of us except Tim Lyons/owner had sailed/raced the boat!!!

Practice ... Practice ... Practice

We "beach catters" need too get together, you schedule the party ... I'll make the meatballs (you should try my Lasgna!!! John McL will refuse Steak and eat it instead ...)

Harry