The crew: Tim, David, Ben, Bee, and another.
Whoops! This race was just full of mistakes! It had been a few months since Siren’s last race, and the rust was definitely showing. First off, we started 10 minutes early by mistake. We realized the error, motored back to the start area and were able to barely catch our correct start time, only 2 minutes late. Then we rammed another boat. Well, not quite a ramming, but David did have to push off another boat to prevent contact. There were two boats ahead of us with Siren catching up in the Ala Wai Channel. I thought there was room to squeeze between them, but before overlap occured the leeward boat pinched up to squeeze us out. Looking back, I should have KNOWN he would do this and ducked his stern when I could, but by the time he started pinching it was too late. We let go the jib sheet and centered the main, but to no avail. We had too much momentum. Engine on, crank reverse, but we were still baaaaarely creeping up to the boat in front of us with inches to go before David finally had to just shove them off to prevent contact. DQ’ed.
We continued on pretending that never happened just for practice, but as we rounded the last red channel marker we realized nobody was around us anymore. Everyone was falling off the wind! Oh shoot! The course changed! As we turned left for DH buoy, everyone else was turning right for HH buoy. Doh!! So we followed everyone down and around and back, actually holding our own fairly well, and then the towed boat entered the scene. A 44 foot sailboat was under tow by a tiny two stroke powered dinghy with the owner yelling, “Mayday mayday mayday! Give way!” We were ahead of him and increasing distance, but he was insistent that we turn out of the channel to come in behind him. We offered to throw a line to give the poor dinghy a break but he declined. So we turned on our engine, turned out and away and followed him in under power.
Worst race ever. Oh well; Next time has to be better!
