Grits & Haggis!

So the weekend of 5/16 & 5/17 was my sailing club's first ever gonna-be-annual regatta for my kind of boat ONLY, not a mix of boats like most races (known as an OD race-- one design). When different kinds of boats race, everybody is assigned a time handicap if their boat just can't go as fast as the fastest boat (PHRF racing, performance handicap racing fleet). So OD is cool since you know that you won purely because you had better boat-handling or tactical decision-making, probbly both. Since the club is in a southern spot, and the boat is a Flying Scot, we ended up naming the regatta "Grits & Haggis"! (And both were served at meals...) Our memories aren't clear on this, but I -may- have been the person to originate that title.

So guess who got the honor of designing the official t-shirts? Moi.

And we:
1) didn't hit any islands (SWEET!)
2) finished ALL the races in the regatta (that's new)-- five!
3) DIDN'T COME IN LAST!!!
4) didn't have the experience to fly the downwind sail (spinnaker), and learned that when we do, we're gonna be RIGHT IN with the big boys!

Check out this photogenic crew! (slide-show, if you want)

And as to not coming in last, out of 16 boats, we finished:
R1 R2 R3 R4 R5
13 15 15 15 14
So alright, once we figure out this downwind sail, we'll be in the mix. (That's half the race) We lost a ton on the downwind legs, but made up SEVERAL MINUTES on some other boats on the upwind leg.

And I've termed wrecks involving a particular sailor (Mr. French): we saw his boat collide hard with other boats two or three times, so that's now called a "French kiss". (It feels weird to say that I hope I DON'T get French-kissed)