Our first race is about to start! The Lake Ontario 600 starts on Saturday. I am soooo excited to be racing on my own boat and on my own terms. Andrew and I will be doing the race double handed. Ellementary is as ready as she will be! What does it take to get a new boat ready for a “shake down” race? Well, the effort started with running new electrical, a toilet and some good old fashioned elbow grease.
Then some electronics had to be added. Fortunately I still had some of my Raymarine gear from the Mini 6.50 days. The basics are installed. Next came some ammenities. A cooker, a jetboil, a little basket to hold “stuff”, some pockets at the quazy nav station to hold fancy things like pencils and music and then I emptied the boat out! Too much stuff in the boat already and we’ve only been floating for a month!
Next on the agenda was food and a new furler for the staysail. Food is a key factor to racing. I like food and I don’t miss a meal. For me its part of good mental health.
A hot bowl of something delicious….a cup of tea in the middle of the night to warm the heart….its all intrinsic to keeping a good head about you.
Happy Yak is our freeze dried food of choice for this race. A few years ago I was at the Montreal boat show and walked past a booth of hot food sampling. I tried some and immediately went back to my booth and said to the guys there “ya gotta try this! Its awesome”. Freeze dried has come a long way, but Happy Yak got there faster than anyone else! To go along with our Happy Yak bags of delight I have chorizo, cheese, apples for crunch and some trail mix type stuff. I’m fairly certain Andrew and I could eat for a week and a half if we needed to!
The other piece of fancy kit to add to the program is a new Facnor +1500 furler for the staysail.
All of the sails except the big red A2 spinnaker are on furlers. The staysail did not come with a furler. Once I got the furler installed and the luff properly tensioned she spun like a dream! I’m a big fan of top down flat deck furlers. No overrides in the drum, no excess line in the cockpit and things never jam. Plus Facnor makes a tough product that can handle oceans and lakes alike.
Final jobs are to pack my clothes and run more weather routing files.
Lets see how many layers I need of my Helly Hansen gear! Hopefully it won’t be too cold or wet 🙂
Well the boat is in race configuration and delivery is Friday. Race starts Saturday. We are listed in two divisions. The double handed division for the 300 and the 600 division. We are scratch boat in the double handed 300 division. No pressure but we need to stay ahead of everyone! Follow us on the tracker here.
Let’s go racing!
Diane
