Parent Youth Race 2-11-06

We ran a Pirate Race this day. The object of the game is to get 1 of each colored ping pong ball, back to the dock first. The balls are located in 3 bouys which are set, each bouy only has one color in it. You can get the balls either by sailing up to them and getting one, or by attacking another vessel. You attack them by sailing up and throwing a tennis ball at their boat. If you hit their boat before they hit you, then you win the "battle". Each boat starts with only 2 tennis balls, so you have to be careful with your shots and try to recover the spent ammunition.

The bouys were these butter tubs, the lid has a hole in them so you can flip it upside down to get a ball out.

Only 2 of us showed up, the Scorpion Pirates in their Capri 14.2, and Leopards (us), in our PDRacer. I knew the Scorpions could out pace us, but I had a strategy - since we were more manuverable, our plan was to guard one of the bouys and get on the down wind side, so their sails would impede their ability to see us and throw their cannon balls.

As the race started, the Scorpions headed for the first bouy and passed it so quickly, I thought they had missed it and not extracted a ball. So we headed for that bouy to guard it, and wait for their return. The Scorpions continued to the other two bouys and to our surpise, went back to the dock !! They HAD been able to extract a ball from the first bouy. Yikes, that game was over quickly !!

So they came back out and we spend the next hour firing our cannon balls at each other.

My strategy had proved itself, we were able to strike their boat about twice as much as they could get ours, and often their cannon fire would go right between our hull and sail, continuing to the other side and into the water because my sail has a very high boom, plus we would duck out of the way. With their main and jib being so large, we could easily hit them.

This is a good time to point out that during every race, the Scorpions always have one or two crew up on the bow deck. Mark (at the tiller) swings it hard over when tacking and jibing, and I have yet to see any of them fall into the water by accident. If anyone owns the definition of sea legs, it has to be those kids.

After the race, we all ate our lunches. The sun shade in the photo worked with the wind to form sort of a kid trap. The kids would come over and sit in it, then the wind would blow it closed on top of them. So if you ever have the need to catch kids, this shade is just the trick.

After adding up the scores, we had a 3 way tie for first place. Here are the trophies that were divided up.