Sunday

4 races banged off in 5 hours - now that's race management! Well done ABYC.

The morning started off feeling like 10-15 knots and they wasted no time getting a course set and it was pretty clear from the radio banter in the morning that these guys were not joking around.

The day was forecast to be miserable, but thankfully that's about the only profession that only requires about 1% accuracy. It was only partly cloudy and blowing. And the swells were about 4-6 feet high - now that's super fun sailing. And Jenny managed to not abandon ship.

The first 3 starts resulted in general recalls. Aggressive sailing by everyone so that's awesome. The 4th race was a black flag start - over early and you're disqualified.

Our starts were awesome. 7 starts in 4 races - all timed well. All executed well. All aggressive. All went according to plan. All of them took other boats up. All of them resulted in clean air on a tight line. Unfortunately, probably our 3 best starts were all of the ones recalled!

After the first leg of the first race our hoists were awesome too. All of our douses went smoothly including when Holly made an executive on the spot decision to douse to starboard and pulled it off seamlessly. Some stuff went wrong, especially after we all got a bit tired. But who cares. That really wasn't the point.

We kept saying that given another month together we would be really competitive together. But we didn't have that. And we had fun anyway. Tons of fun.

Surprisingly, the only collision we had all weekend was with the other Hudson team. We were headed around the windward mark of the last race, chatting and laughing and whatever else. Marian took the inside and then suddenly we were hitting her starboard stern. We each thought it was the other's fault and I'm sure that was later solved over a beer, but I've yet to hear their decision. No one did spins. And as far as I'm concerned, no one cared.

GRTB II sailed very impressively after a rather rough start to the morning. Sailing out of the harbour under jib alone resulted in being blown into the rocks. Thankfully the water is deep there and some of the members ran to their rescue and all was fine, minus a couple of shot nerves.

They recovered well and made a smart decision to change their foresail. We had discussed that and ultimately decided against it but I think they made the right decision and there were several times I was winching that Genny in 10/12 knots that I wished we'd done the same.

Overall, I don't even know what the results were because i had to leave to catch my flight but I don't even care to be honest, that wasn't the point. The point was we went. The point was we are capable enough sailors to pull that off and fit into a fine group of Canadian women sailors.

And, more so, the point is we had an absolute blast.

The regatta may be over, but the lessons are not. Stay tuned for more blogging this week as this all starts to pour out and the photos start to pour in. I've been trying to figure out how to post a slide show, but now I really have to. Promise.