Wednesday night
beer can
race tonight. Temperature 102 at
race time..7pm.
Wind out of south at 5-7. The wife said it was too hot so I went by myself. I was 15 minutes late for the start so I took off chasing the fleet in a southerly direction.
Mainsail full and hanked on 150
genoa. After the fleet rounded the second mark they were headed toward me on their run so I tacked to their leeward so as not to get mixed up in the midst of them and spoil someone's air. The
wind was getting better all of a sudden and I picked up some speed. I was approaching the lakes shoreline maybe a quarter mile out. There was a sizeable gap in the group which allowed me plenty of room to tack back through them and not mess anybody up. Just as I made my tack I saw the wind coming down the hill, blowing the hell out of the trees as it reached the
water and headed my way. I was like...uh-oh. It hit me so hard I was completely out of control. I don't know how hard it was blowing. All I could think of was "boy you better do something fast". I let the mainsheet way out and dumped both
genoa sheets. They were whipping around out over the
water on the starboard side...barely getting wet. Genoa flailing like crazy. I loosened the
halyard faster than I ever have, quickly eased out to the bow pulpit and jerked that damn genoa down, piled it into the pulpit and secured the clew to the
deck cleat with the
sheets. I got back to the
cockpit and trimmed in the main a little but the wind was howling even more. I looked at the fleet and they were all scrambling trying to get their spinnakers down. After about 5 minutes the wind started dying pretty fast. Fifteen minutes after the whole thing started it was over. My heart rate and the wind was back to normal. When I got home my wife said a big storm hit a town about 20 miles to the east. I remembered seeing the cloud but it didn't look like much and it was not coming my direction. What did I do wrong...if anything?