2011 Key West Race Week: Day 2

Sunday was our day to get out on the water and practice.  The boat had been brought down and set up earlier in the week, so all we needed to do was some final tuning and go sailing.  We are sharing a slip with another J105, Max Power.  The RC44s are just down the dock from us as well as a few other big racing boats.

After an hour of prep work, we were ready to go.  2 minutes after getting the sails up and starting to sail, I was down below and noticed water above the floorboards.  It turns out there were 2 slow leaks on the boat and the bilge pump had not been turned on.  Turning that on along with a couple minutes of bailing and we got the bilge emptied and went back to sailing.

Our practice went well.  It gave us all a chance to sail together, we made sure all of the systems and equipment were race ready, and we got to spend time practicing some new positions for many of us.  Mid-afternoon we headed back to shore and made a few repairs and got everything cleaned up for racing tomorrow.

We ate a late lunch at Turtle Krawls and Russell Coutts (BMW Oracle) sat down at the table next to us.  Peter Holmgren (Alinghi 2003) was at another table nearby.  In the evening everyone hung out watching the NFL playoffs.  Rob went to the skippers meeting, we checked out the regatta party and after a pretty low-key evening, turned in pretty early.  8:30 dock call tomorrow.