Shane Kilberg called me on Friday morning saying Velocity, a Class 40 needed crew for Governor’s Cup, an overnight distance race from Annapolis to St. Mary’s which is on the Potomac River. The owner is Marty Roesch, who I sailed with a smidge way back. Arriving to the dock, I discovered I knew some of the other crew already as well! The boat is designed to race single or double-handed around the world, but the was no restriction on the # of crew and the forecast for this race was for over 30 knots of breeze (upwind and in the dark with three thunderstorms), so Shane called me up on Friday morning to join the team, with dock call at 2:30 that same day, hahaha. I took one look at the boat and dropped my plans (just social plans) to show up.
There were 6 of us onboard. One guy, Daniel O'Farill, did the match racing event with me up at Oakcliff on my boat. Another, Carter Miller, was up there at Oakcliff on a different team and I know Marty and Shane, so it was really just meeting this one other young guy, Nate. The 6 of us SENT IT all the way there. The boat was so stable and happy in the breeze and storms.
Other boats lost their masts, shredded sails, lost their electronics and/or turned around to drop out of the race. It was a walk in the park for this boat! It’s designed to race around the world solo or double-handed, so there was no need for any of us to leave the safety of the cockpit to do most of the maneuvers. We got totally set up with the sails we wanted to have available on furlers by the time it got dark and all just cruised on down the bay all tucked in (with foul weather gear, life jackets and harnesses). Very civil.
Got to St. Mary’s around 2:30am and rafted up 10 boats wide at the dock for a party into the wee hours of the morning. Caught a few minutes of sleep and then sailed the boat back. We probably averaged 15knots of boat speed all the way home!!! It was exhilarating. The boat was so strong and so agile. I helped drive a little on the race. Did a lot of the jib and spinnaker trimming in both directions. The rudders go up and down on each board, so I helped put those up and down and otherwise enjoyed the ride up on the rail!
It was certainly a top sailing experience of my life.