Our sailing season officially kicked off yesterday, with our first-ever participation in a race with our Melges 15.

Julie working to rig the boat Julie working to rig the boat

Our entire family has competed in racing before, but only as crew on E Scow boats in our local Keuka Yacht Club races. I’ve never skippered in a race before and my fear was real. We have a mini fleet of about 5 Melges 15 boats so far, and three of us were in the race. Julie and I had just rigged the boat the day before and only got in a 10 minute sail, and we never tried to deploy the spinnaker. Spinnaker deploying and dousing are the two most likely fail points for these (any?) boats in a race.

Before the race we had about 10 minutes to sail around so we attempted to deploy, with a big fail. Clearly we had rigged it incorrectly. Still we raced and just did the downwind leg with no kite (aka spinnaker aka chute). Knowing we wouldn’t be competitive I held back on the start line to stay out of the other two boats’ way.

We think we have our problems solved and will try for a sail today if the wind cooperates. We should have races most Saturday mornings so lots of opportunity to learn and improve.

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