At the conclusion of day 1

The wind was forecasted to be 11 - 15 knots on day one racing. The actual conditions? Well, we had steady 25 knot winds with up to 33 knot gusts, lots of chop, and huge swells! Joe had his first experience in the hobbles in big seas, coming back to the docks completely drenched from head to toe. At one point, he looked up and asked Val and I if it was raining... to which we felt around and realized it was... not that it really mattered when we had water crashing over the side of our boat on every wave!

For the light Alpena crew, used to practicing in the sheltered shores of Thunder Bay, it was a practice in survival! We also were amazed at how long the course was -- you couldn't see the upwind mark from the starts and had to sail and make strategy solely by the compass and other boats. Unfortunately, we chose the wrong side of the course for too long in the first race's first upwind leg and had a poor standing around the windward mark. We passed a Danish boat on the downwind, however, which was quite an accomplishment for us! By the end of the race, the fleet spread an incredible distance from first to last place. Coming into the finish, we watched as some boats jibed AWAY from the finish... we couldn't understand why they finished on the wrong side of the committee boat and checked our sailing instructions quickly in the boat to make sure we were still going the correct way. Good thing we knew our rules -- we gained 3 places because of boats not finishing the race and receiving "DNF" scores!

For the second race, we tried a different technique of staying with the fleet and in the middle of the course, but still struggled to keep the boat flat and pointing high. The wind shifts here aren't as abrupt as in Alpena -- the jib doesn't luff and you decide to tack, it's more of an oscillation of back and forth lifts and headers that only last for a couple minutes each. Since it's impossible to tack on these, strategy and where you are on the course are a big part of racing. We're still working on that, though, and ended up finishing 7th. We were pretty close to the Netherlands all female team but never let them pass us, so that was comforting that we still have boat speed in high winds!

At the end of day 1 racing, we were happy with our finish, being able to hang in with the windy weather, and are looking forward to the future weather forecasts of decreasing wind conditions!