On the weekend we got down to the club and realized that we left our jib with our sail maker, Olympic Sails. With a good 15 to 18 knots blowing and sun shining we were not about to let this spoil our fun.

The race was a sprint race where the slow boats go first and the big fellas go last, counting the slow boats laps before hitting the water and lapping them the required amount of times. After 110 minutes a shorten course flag is flown on the next mark and the competitors head for the finish line with the first boat winning.

We rigged up, raked the rig forward about an inch on the forstay to account for weather helm and hit the water starting with another Tornado 50 minutes after the first boats started. After about 90 minutes after the first boat started we passed the lead boat closly followed by the sloop Tornado and on the upwind to the finish were overtaken to windward by the T and finished second.

I was very supprised at how quick the boat was in this breeze without the jib. Upwind we had a slight edge in hight and speed when we were powered up but in the lulls, suffered. The boat did not accelerate as quick out of tacks however and you had to be sharp with you tacks to power up out of it. We over exagerated our roll tacks to help us, lifting the leeward hull before changing sides. we also had to dive down a bit deeper after the tack to regain momentom before gaining hight. The 10 foot beam dose not tack as quick as an 8 footer.

Off the breeze we could not split the two boats but were a little quicker rounding the top and bottm marks as the crew did not have to worry about the jib.

This was a great fun race and realy tested your tacking ability. I recomend it as a bit of fun. You realy learn a bit from your boat.