Today was the first in the series of Icicle races here on Galveston Bay. I pried my eyes open early and ran up to Kemah to join Capt Vic and his crew. We got underway in time to get the crew warmed up and make a couple of practice runs at the starting line.

It was cold and damp, cloudy and drizzling rain, but we were in good spirits. We had some decent wind (N 10-15 kts), to start the race. We had a great start. Crossed the line right on time and were making about 7 kts all the way to the first mark.

From that point on, it was all down hill. The wind started shifting and dropping off. We had to tack a couple of times to make the next mark. That cost us a lot of time.

By the time we rounded the 2nd mark, the wind had died down to under 5 kts. Not enough to do much for a heavier boat like ours. We tried to sail wing and wing downwind, but it really wasn’t working well. We didn’t have a spinniker and weren’t classed for it anyway so couldn’t have used it if we did have one on board.

We tried for about a half hour, pretty much every other boat had already passed us so we decided to just throw in the towel and head for the dock. At least we would get there before the rum was gone (Cruzan Rum is one of the major sponsors of the Icicle Races). 🙂

There are 4 more races to go. I hope the weather is better for the next one. It’s not a lot of fun to sail when there’s no wind. Even so, I was happy to be out on the water today. 🙂

The pictures are from last years races, I haven’t had time to download the new ones yet.

PS- I’ve joined in the Just Jot it January challenge, you can see what it’s all about here.