Marty's Travels

My house has wheels

The Race

Mad Dog Racing won the race Thursday morning in 3 days and 20 hours, beating the record by a day and a half. I’m sure even the winners would admit they had some astounding luck on their side, in addition to a fast boat and excellent skill. Today about 6 boats crossed the finish line. My friend is about to cross in about 4 hours, the last of the similar, fast, trimarans and catamarans in the race.

He should have done much better, at least stay in the pack of similar, if not identical, boats. At first I thought he had just hit some really bad luck, but then I noticed he was slow going downwind in very respectable winds.

The day before I left Point Hudson, Mark pulled out a brand-new spinnaker, never flown before. We chatted briefly about trying out new things in a race, and when he found a crew they went out to try it out. I sat on the shore with a beer and my binocs and watched as he put it up over at Whidbey and it looked good. Now I’m thinking his brand new spinnaker (the big colorful sail) blew out (separated at the seams under heavy winds) very early in the race and he was stymied for the rest of the race.

I may or may not ever hear the story of what happened.

By the way, I track the race online (tracker.r2ak.com) with updates on each boat’s position, speed, and direction supplied by satellite transponders, as well as wind and wave conditions from transponders on the buoys along the way. Real cool.