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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Nov. 28, 2010-Racing Back to Port Louis

pascal mamet photography

Sailing again


I thought the La Bourdonnais Challenge was just a fun race to a bar in Port Louis, not too much competition, just some fun, like the old days when we raced to Chung Chow Island for lunch with the Discovery Bay Yacht Club in Hong Kong. Perfect for just Judy & I to sail.

So we entered.

But this event was a pretty big deal for the Grand Bay Yacht Club, nearly everyone turned out including the media and the party at the LaBourdonnais Hotel was fantastic. So, by joining, we stumbled into a good thing.

However, on the morning of the race it was soon clear that the racing was going to be very competitive. Aboard each of the race boats crews were switching kevlar for dacon and scrubbing the bottoms. We also found out that the start was going to be tricky being in close quarters inside Grand Bay and also inside the reef where the channel depths only allow us to clear at certain times. At the time of the start we'd have about 6" under our keel.

So we skipped the start, motored out early, then hoisted the sails and joined the fleet at the first mark, and sailed along just for the fun of it; not offically part of the race.

We took it easy, real easy, no spinnaker, no big jib. We didn't need more sail area to get there with the fleet; it was windy, quite gusty actually, and we sailed fast. And even with just a #4 and a main we were busy the whole way. I had my camera on deck but took no photos until we got to the finish and rafted up with the other boats.

For other photos from the photographer, click here to go to pascal mamet photography.

wingssail images-fredrick roswold

Rafted with the racing fleet

Nice party on the lawn, nice awards giving like all yacht clubs awards givings, a very nice dinner, and through it all, lots of sailing talk. And even though we didn't get scored with the racers we got some recognition as the "Fred & Judy, on the boat from the US, who were joining today" and a big applause. We enjoyed ourselves.

And it got us back to Port Louis where we will stay for a few weeks.

Until we sail somewhere else.

Click here for more photos from the raft-up

Click here to see the log book pages of our sailing trips in November 2010


Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Mauritius

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2 Comments:

Blogger Nic'la said...

Fred...I told you it was going to be a very competitive race! within 2mn 26 sec we have 6 boats in compensate time ! we lost the podium by 26 sec and we're 6th !!!! Have a nice stay in Mauritius.

Nicolas

29 November, 2010 04:18  
Anonymous Caroline said...

Nice! Happy holidays to everyone.

14 December, 2010 02:56  

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