Presidents Cup Race 2

In the first race of this 3 race series I elected to sail with no spinnaker. This was a mistake as the wind was so light I was left way behind and it was frustrating. For race 2 I elected to use a spinnaker. I was no better off in the results but I did achieve my goal of hoisting, gybing and dropping a spinnaker all by myself. Ray the autopilot was pretty good during these manouvers! My first spinnaker hoist was for a shy reach from empire point across to the red at the north of St Helena Island. I used our medium hounds height spinnaker and all the bands popped beautifully. It was too shy and I eventually (I did hold it nearly the whole leg) had to drop the spinnaker as I was heading to Tangalooma. The next spinnaker hoist was after the north cardinal on Green Island. I used a different spinnaker as I knew Ihad other packed spinnakers on board and so I had not repacked the first kite. But I couldn't get all the rubber bands to pop and I had to sail across the finish line with a pretty weird looking reef in my spinnaker. How embarrassing and frustrating. When I dropped this kite I checked the bands and discovered that the next band to pop was actually a double. No wonder it didn't pop. I think I will give wool a go for next time and only band the bottom half of the spinnaker as the shoulders don't really need banding anyway!