Port Angeles review -

 

 

Friday night:

The boat is in the pits and ready to go. We have a newly designed and fabricated stub shaft after shearing off the old shaft and losing our propeller in San Diego. Looking forward to racing after a long mid-season trail of broken parts and broken hearts.

 

Saturday night:

            Rough day on the salt water bay today. The afternoon currents made the course bumpy (I hit my head at least 6 times in the cockpit during Heat 2B) and my starts were not stellar – still we got out and scored points in both Heats 1B and 2B and came back to the dock under power, a marked improvement over the last two events! Climbing toward a top 10 finish hopefully.

 

 

Sunday night:

            What a day! Heat 3B was fantastic; we hit the line at full speed and pulled away from the UL-18 in the first lap. We were caught up by the UL-1 during lap 2 and raced deck-to-deck with the Mike’s Hard Lemonade for two and a half laps before conceding the lead and 400 points to Jerry Hopp. Unfortunately we were 2 seconds early at the start and finished 4th after a one minute penalty. Never the less it was great to get the boat out front and run hard for four laps averaging over 83mph on a one-mile course (my Aunt Gloria was certainly thrilled by the action on the Port Angeles course). The B-Main was a tall order with the UL-6, UL-19 and UL-33 on the water with us, but we were game. Took lane three at the start and fought for four laps with the UL-33, but the UL-6 and UL-19 had gotten a half-lap ahead of us by the finish so we couldn’t repeat our season opener and make the final. This left us in 12th at the end of the season so we missed our “Top 10” goal – still many lessons learned and coming in to the season never having never driven a boat before I must say it was a steep learning curve.

 

This was a weekend that gives us a great deal of hope for next season. We made it through four heats with minimal damage and scored points all four times out. Our goal this season was to run consistently and gain experience – unfortunately we were only able to bookend the season in Issaquah and Port Angeles with good performances. The plan is to run the entire circuit next season so we will make a checklist of parts and pieces we need spares for to make that happen and begin to put things together.

 

Many thanks to Dean, Jim, Christopher, Kathy and Donna – I hope they all felt as good as I did about finally have the boat running at its’ potential.