I concur with the opinions here! It was a great weekend of racing. Frank came out of temporary retirement to make the run with me and we were off with a BANG on saturday morning. The jib reach in breezy conditions proved to be a big advantage to the heavier F18 team and we were ripping up the water early. Muma-Ding were pretty mean in the creeks and kept closing fast. As the wind lightened up a little on the backside, they had legs on us and passed us just before the entrance to Jewfish creek. We got them back in Blackwater Sound as they let us go off to the left all on our own and we laid the next creek entrance perfectly for a single trap spin run from about a mile away. There was a log jam of boats in the creek going into Tarpon basin and we got passed again. Hot on Muma-Ding's heels we got hit by a puff and I zigged when I should have zagged and sent Frank and I swimming. We righted it quickly and got headed back to the finish line just a few minutes behind that 2nd pack.

Day 2 was a crazy race to the first creek and it was a bit of a challenge to determine how soon after the start you could pop your kite and lay the entrance. A few set their kites right at the start line - we waited and reached out about 150 yards before making the turn and got lucky nailing the entrance again. After exiting Buttonwood sound, I thought we would find better breeze and angle near shore (having been beat several times by teams that hugged that shore going the opposite direction with similar wind angle/pressure). We only got better angle - the breeze was a little less there and the teams that ran down the middle rocketed away. Regardless, what a fantastic run south. I think I was in the wire driving with the kite up for most of the day - skirting through 5 foot deep water and at full tilt. It was an incredible sail. After rounding the Channel 5 bridge, we cut it tight to the hard shallows, boards up as high as we could sail with the kite until that ran us out into deeper water where we could get our boards down and start sailing a jib reach out to better water. The breeze lightened and it went from no trap, single trap, double trap, and back and forth for the final 6 miles. Knowing that Muma-Ding were speedy in these conditions, we worked our tails off to keep them behind us and try to make up the deficit from the day before. In the end, I think the difference we lost to them by was two minutes or less.

It was the best Steeplechase I've ever raced by a long shot.