Yeah there are just some days when a greater power tells you that you shouldn't even try. Last Thursday was one of those days. I was rushed to the boat to begin with; which is when I usually make the most mistakes. I was being hoisted to the mid-mast to replace steaming and spreader lights minutes before we had to leave the dock for Thursday night racing.
We had motored no further than 5 minutes out of the marina when the engine sputtered and died. There was no metallic clank of systems breaking just a slow sputtering death. I lept down below and bleed the line and emerged to start the boat before we drifted into danger. The engine fired up right away and ran for another minute before dying again.
Immediately I began over analyzing the situation. I figured that their was air in the system or one of the fuel filters was fouled. Finally Thomas said: " Hey; when was the last time you filled up?" I tapped the tank and heard a loud hollow clank. Man I am an idiot. I luckily always carry an extra 20 litres of fuel (all you hardcore racers can laugh now) so there was no problem and we made our way out for the race.
I thought we had beat our bad luck at first. The conditions were perfect. 10-15 knots of SE breeze and we had a good start being the third boat over the line and gaining on our competitors quickly. We rounded the first mark in a tight group and were ready for a bare away hoist. Which is when we discovered that the kite had not been packed after the last use. We were missing our usual foredeck guy and dousing the fowled chute and redeploying it was painful exercise which resulted in the pole up being hoisted out of reach without being attached to the spinnaker pole. Dave, utilizing his rock climbing skills, somehow climbed half the mast without a harness and retrieved the line.
At this point were at the leeward mark and needed to get rid of the whole affair. We limped around the mark in dead last place and made our way back to the windward mark vowing to make up for lost time. With the boat rigged we approached ready for our second hoist. Now it was decision time. We hoisted the sail and found that the spinnaker sheet had been attached through the pulpit fouling it. We even managed to wrap the kite around the forestay in a big mess.
Rounding the last mark we made for the finish line with our tail between our legs finishing dead last. I swear that was one of the worst races we had ever done. The other shocking element is that none of us had been into the sauce; we had no excuse. Oh well there is always next time.
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