Oregon Off-Shore Race

Friday May 2, 2008 @ 3:30 pm - Left Delin Fuel Dock.

On the delivery to Astoria was: Denny, Becky, Jeff, Will & Gregg.

Denny & Jeff worked below pulling wires for the mast head light that Denny just installed. While working on the electrical panel they blew a fuse and shorted out the freezer, GPS and auto pilot. We used a hand-held GPS and manually drove from then on. Friday night it started to rain with winds 18-22 right on our nose out of the north. We arrived in Nea Bay at 2:00 pm where we fueled up.

Saturday was a beautiful day. Winds were 6-10 with 4' waves and 8-10' seas. With not enough wind to put up a sail the boat was very pitchy. There were some nauseous people: Denny & Jeff with Will not feeling so good either. Becky & Gregg were fine. Saturday night was clear with a million starts out.

Sunday, we were luck with the tide coming into the bar at 1:00 pm arriving in Astoria.

Monday morning Denny was on the phone with the refrigerator guy trying to figure what part to order which ended up to be an electronic module. Then off to the marine store to buy a cord for the hand held GPS that will plug into the lap top so it will work with Nobel-Tec. The auto pilot will have to wait until we get back to Tacoma.

Thursday May 8 @ 12 pm the race started with 15 boats, 5 in our class. The team consisted of Denny, Becky, Bruce, Gregg & Will. We had an excellent start with Denny driving. We were 4th over the start line. For the next 50 miles we were on a port tack with 12-17 knots of wind. For the most part it was cold and dry with a few squalls from time to time.

Friday May 9. What a beautiful day! Warm and sunny. We put up the spinnaker at 10 am with 10-14 knots of wind. We see two spinnakers behind us. At noon we saw a grey whale. Then the wind died and we drifted for 8 hours. At midnight, finally the wind came from the west and we went along the Canadian side.

Saturday May 10. Cloudy but dry day. At noon we were off Snook Harbor when the wind died and we were going backwards, very frustrating. Finally at 5:30 pm we started to move after over 5 hours of just sitting we are moving towards Race Rocks. We had the tide with us through Race Rocks. Our speed was 2 knots, but over ground it was 5-6. Finally at 6:30 the wind picked up and we put up the spinnaker going 8-9 knots. We crossed the finish line a 7:55 pm and received at the dock champagne and hot towels. As it turned out we came in second in our class.

We all spent the night on the boat and left Victoria at 5 am Sunday morning. It was very rough with the wind out of the north 25-30 and seas 6-8' feet. Finally checking into customs at Port Townsend at 11 am the winds calmed down and we had an easy ride home.

It was an overall great trip! We all worked well together and are developing great chemistry. Everyone gets along fabulous with many laughs along the way. Bruce wore a seasick patch, when you see him next you'll have to ask him about his new invention, it has to do with a beer patch.