UC Irvine Club Sailing Team

Day 2

Ouralarms buzzed at 7:45am east coast times (meaning 4:45 California time) to wakeus up for the busy day ahead.  We headed down to the docks to head out forday 1 of sailing.  We arrived, registered, and rigged our boat to preparefor two hours of practice from 9:00-11:00am.  Coach was able to accompanyus during this time and help us figure out how to handle the Colgate 26’s,which were foreign to us all.  After the practice period, we feltconfident in our boat handling and headed out to race in the ICSA SloopNational regatta.  Other teams on the racecourse included College ofCharleston, Navy, Boston College, Saint Mary’s, and Toledo University. After much waiting for the wind to settle down and moving the racecourse downthe river into more consistent breeze, the races were off.  The first raceacted as learning experience for us all, placing 9th.  We allrealized how to read the puffs and figured out what we needed to do to place inthe top of fleet.  In between races, each team rotated into a new boat,bringing spinnaker and all gear with them.  New boat=new race. The secondrace was sailed in much lighter breeze, but the UCI team was able to figure outthe puffs and placed 5th.  The wind continued to oscillate andfluctuate throughout the 3rd race, but we figured out how the breezeworks over here and finished 3rd overall, just inches behind ToledoUniversity.  The races ended around 4:00 and we headed back to our hotel,with much more knowledge about sailing in Connecticut and racing Colgate26’s.  After short team pow-wow, we hit the pillows to rest for the longday ahead of us.