Salsa Verde and her 4 only crew (Jon, Erdem, Ted and me) available to race yesterday sailed out to Epping Forest in 15-20 kt from the NE. The sail there was longer than expected and the brown splashes of the St John’s were often over our heads. The clean bottom showed us high numbers on the lock! We were all positive that we would do great in that race! For once…

We missed the skipper’s meeting at Epping, but Rosanne from Liberty Call generously gave us the info. We had the #3 and the full main out. Right after the start, we had to gibe around marker 5… And that was the end of it. The main halyard splicing gave up on the hard gibe.

So we took the main down, the #3 down and hoisted the medium #1 for a fast sail downwind to Julington Creek. On our way south we were looking at the competition being slammed down with their spinnaker in the water when the strong gusts were hitting… Some more conservative went under jib only, still pretty fast! We saw up to 9.8 kt on the lock under #1 only!!! Fun and exausting day regardless of the poor racing performance…