We had a great afternoon aboard Tango watching the action out on the water. For fifty dollars per person drinks included (although we only had one) it's a good deal. My mistake was that I picked Friday which is the race around the island day. I would have preferred a day of racing on a traditional set course with 2 legs into the wind and 1 down wind, because the mark roundings can make for some great pictures. So we left Simpson Bay and headed out to Oyster Bay area into the wind which was a little bumpy with the boat pitching up and down and spraying the foredeck with water a few times. Which explains our 1 drink, but it didn't stop others from indulging. Once the lead boats had pasted us we followed the fleet to the finish line, which made for a much smoother sail. Once back in Simpson Bay we sailed past the mega yacht Whisper, quite impressive. The owner is a former CEO of Google, of course. We would definitely do this again.
Yes. The boats left Simpson Bay in the morning and raced clockwise around the island and we were on the 12pm Tango cruise so we went past P'Burg up to Oyster Bay and turned around and followed the boats back to Simpson Bay.
Oh that looks fun! We enjoyed seeing the almost unending parade of glorious sailing ships yesterday at Orient. Everytime we thought it was over another set would come magnificently sailing into view.
The "Around the Island Race" start was different from usual races in that we did a downwind start so that they could do a clockwise race around the island. Downwind starts are difficult, because there's no way to put on the brakes and being over the line when the start horn goes off means you have to return and that costs a lot of time. But for those boats that start under spinnaker it gives us on the committee start boat a great view. And the CSA1 huge racers are impressive regardless of what direction they are heading.