Prep day

Nationals starts in 3 days holy cow! Although the last 2 years of racing have been the best of my life, we did after all buy 88 with the purpose of racing a Nat's in our backyard, and it's finally here. Getting very excited, the boats in good shape, the team is great and I feel ready. Ready especially after today, as Niki and I spent several hours on the dirtiest (and slimiest, don't forget the slime) parts of the boat.

First we stripped all of the non essential gear (and beercans) off the boat. Bam keeps telling me that my boat is "cluttered" so I keep cutting lines shorter and taking more gear off. Hopefully it's uncluttered now, as I have no idea what else could possibly come off the boat! Then we gave the boat the most thorough wash of its life (it gleams!) and pulled it over to the crane.
I really like this shot, as the boats just look so weird out of the water! Once the boat was out we gave it a good scrub and sand, followed by some Harken Hullkote. I really don't know if the hullkote does anything on a bottom as rough as ours, or over VC17, but it sure made us feel fast while we got washer-womans elbow putting it on!
A recurring theme in this blog is that my wife rocks, as it was her idea to buy the boat, but I think getting covered in algae and bottom paint may be a new high (low?) for us. This was actually kind of fun, and it's nice knowing the boat is as prepped as it possibly can be.

See, our boat really does get cleaned!

Protest update: The protest from C3 was reopened, and in the end 88, 150, 90, and 63 were DSQ'd. I'm 100% sure that we were never properly protested, and that we weren't signaled a course change. I trust everyone in our fleet, and have no problem believing that they sailed the course they were given, but we didn't get that course. I submitted my testimony by email (mistake) and didn't go to the reopened hearing. The markset boat driver claims he was on station, sounding horns, and had someone jumping up and down on the bow waving (what?) and that we are a dark boat with a purple/pink/purple spinnaker (thats actually a Luders 16.) I've always been fascinated by the wide variations in how people can see the same event (like a protest, or a car accident.) Our season result is still safe, but I was a bit bummed to hear that we were DSQ'd, as we're sure the RC made a mistake, and that what the markset boat driver said was incorrect. 2 lessons here, one is if you care about the rules, go to the protest hearing! Two is that protests are ugly, and can end in ways that make no sense, so it's best to not get into them in the first place, although thats kind of irrelevant here since we sailed that race right, led every mark and still got a 12. I guess a third lesson is that it's best to let these things go and get on with your life! I had a really fun day with Niki, and at least I can look back on that race fondly, as we did sail well and had a good time.

It's all about Nat's from here on out, as our season is secured. Pray for big breeze!