Sunday I sailed the final race of The Hot Rum Series in San Diego aboard John Rickard's Cheetah 30 "Spinout". Let me get this out of the way immediately: We dropped out. Okay, I feel better. It was very light and we thought that it would take forever so we did what any Frenchman would do: We quit! I would however, like the record to reflect that Gary Weisman on a Farr 40 quit before we did. Again, I feel better.

We did get to fly the Code Zero spinnaker for a while. Granted, it was a light air beat and we weren't pointing well with it, but we were sure going fast. After zigging and zagging for a bit like, well drunken sailors, we determined that this was not an optimum headsail for a closed course beat, and so we congratulated ourselves on yet another stunning observation, and quit. We actually were doing fairly well having caught and passed the Sierra 26 in some fluky shit. Feeling good about ourselves, we did what few have the balls to do, we of course quit. The Sierra went on to a ninth place in this race and an excellent first in class and second overall for the series.

As an aside, it is really interesting to note how different two similar boat's series can turn out. In the first race the Sierra finished 16th overall and the Cheetah finished 32nd. In the second race, the Cheetah ground down the Sierra and was within probably ten boat lengths of it before choosing the very wrong side of the final beat in and just got pounded, while the Sierra sailed well to a 13th. And in the last race as mentioned, we were well ahead of the Sierra when we threw in the towel. Lessons to be learned for sure, and oh yeah, this just in: That Nelson guy is pretty good.

I did have a chance to take a good look at the North built Code Zero. These are very interesting things. Half genoa, half spinnaker, it is clear to see how spectacular they can be in the right conditions. This one was on a furler and it was easy to use. An obvious necessity for sprit boats. By the way, good ol' DC, sailing his AC boat (Is it PHRF legal? And how 'bout that rating?) beat the snot out of a whole bunch of weekend warriors in the final race. Hey, good times!

December 3, 2001