Yeah, I had actually decided to bail before the start when the visibility dropped and we couldn't see the bridge any more. This being our first time there I had counted on atleast being able to see where we were supposed to go. But once it cleared we decided to start the race and sail to the outside and see how the conditions were figuring we could always sail back on the inside.
So we started and actually had a great time sailing upwind in the big breeze. We also thought we had set the jib so we could furl it for the downwind if needed.

When we got to the outside we thought the waves weren't as bad as I had thought they would be. The winds were still very gusty though so we decided to furl the jib but it would jam about half way thru so after about five minutes of being parked we gave up on it and just left it out. We made the turn downwind and hoisted the spinnaker and started booking downwind. Unfortunately due to the wind direction we started to get too close to the shore so we ended up taking the spinnaker down pretty soon and started sailing under main and jib. I think we sailed about 6-7 miles when we got hit with a gust that pitchpoled us. We righted the boat and sailed on a (wild) close reach for probably about a mile or so to get away from the shore. What happened next is something I still can't quite explain.
When we made the turn downwind the boat accelerated from right under me and I simply slipped off. The HUGE mistake was that when I fell I still had the main sheet but let go. Should have never done that!
The boat ended up flipping but there was no way for me to catch it. It's amazing how fast the boat drifts on it's side. Pat even got the boat righted once and was headed back to me when another gust blew him over. After that he was cartwheeling down and away from me. About half an hour later I couldn't even see the boat so I knew there was no way he could see me.
Lucky for me, Pat turned on the epirb and called the Coasties on the cell phone. Turns out that they were not seeing the epirb signal but they had a plane in the air which ended up spotting him. At that point these two guys working on their house on shore saw the plane circling and spotted Pat standing on a flipped boat. They went and got him and started looking for me based on how the CG plane was circling. It was only about a minute after the plane spotted me in the water when the boat actually found me as well. They took us back to our boat and we righted it and sailed it to their cove where they had a boat ramp. At that point I thought it would be too much to try to make the finish line before dark. Not to mention I was exhausted.
A scary experience for sure... I spent about an hour in the water and I thought my only chance was to try to make headway to the shore about two miles away but I did not seem to be moving too fast and the problem was that some of the waves would break over me so I would have to stop swimming and use my arms just to keep my head above the waves. My drytop took on some water making me heavier and I just couldn't decide whether to take it off so I could swim better. Thing was taking it off meant taking the lifejacket off first and risking losing it.
Learned quite a few lessons that day. Will carry a personal epirb during the next distance race for sure (have to make sure it works though). Given the same conditions, I would do that race again though. I don't think the conditions were that terrible. And if we would have dropped the jib, I think we could have sailed the whole downwind just fine.
It's a fun race in the breeze - just need to hang on!

Olli