Today was not a good day. There were three races scheduled. It took about an hour to get the first race underway. Firstly it was postponed with less than a minute to go. Then there was a general recall then we got a start but then race was abandoned because the start linen was so biased. Then another general recall and then another race was was abandoned half way down the first beat due to a big shift. We finally got away in 15 - 20 knots. I pulled all I could on the boom vang, Cunningham and foot tension but it still wasn't enough for me to be able to sail properly.
The second race got away without problems but we had a poor start. I am being too nervous of the black flag and leaving room to windward for boats to slip in and take away my wind. The wind was stronger than the first race and the problems worse. We tipped in twice with badly executed gybes. Neither cost us much time but the boat full of water slowed us down. On the second capsize at the leeward mark I noticed that the jib halyard was hanging out of the self bailer. I asked Timothy to pull it out but he misunderstood and pulled it out of the cleat and the jib started to come down. Timothy handled the spinnaker very well and although all he wanted to do was go home he toughed it out.
After about 15 minutes of waiting after the second race, the PRO decided to abandon the third race for the day. This was just as well for us as the Cunningham rope broke and the main sail started coming out of the track. Then the luff tensioning rope for the jib snapped as well. So we would have had big problems fixing both. In the end we had to get towed in because I couldn't turn the boat around to get into the beach.
If sailing was always like this I wouldn't bother. Here's to a better day tomorrow.
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