Drake's Bay race/weekend

Ok - Drake's Bay race went off without a hitch.  Saturday was a nice sail out the Gate in 10-15kts, but then it got pretty light outside the Gate.  Just south of Duxbury Reef we switched from the #3 to the #1 which helped us pull away from the sport boats that were starting to catch up in the light winds.  About 8nm from Drake's Bay we were able to put up the A3 and horizoned all the boats near us.  Started at 1000 and finished just after 1600.  Our first time anchoring the new boat also went without issue (other than all the seaweed on the anchor line and anchor when we pulled it up Sunday morning.  Sunday's winds were almost non-existent.  We hung in there for about 2.5 hours and had gotten not much more than 1-2 miles from the start line before we called it quits (along with eventually about 90% of the rest of the fleet) - after all we still had to get all the way back to Redwood City (~50nm).  So we motored to about the Bonita Channel were the wind finally started to pick up and we could motor sail.  Of course, once we got around Pt. Bonita we had the typical afternoon SF wind and had a quick 3 hour reach down to Redwood City - arriving just after 1900.

So - ocean race [check], anchor overnight [check].  All in all, a successful weekend.

light winds heading up the coast

beautiful Drake's Bay

rafted up with Andy's Olson 40 for awhile