Every Summer Tuesday evening in South Lake Union (Seattle, WA) they hold a boat race called the Duck Dodge.
http://www.duckdodge.org/. This has apparently been going on for over 4 decades and attracts well over 100 boats of various sizes every week. I had to get registration stickers for my kayak since every boat with a sail that is at least 16ft long needs to be registered with the state. So, I headed to the licensing bureau, slapped on some stickers this week and headed out to join in the fun.
I had no clue where the race started so I just jockeyed around the other boats trying to ask where the start line was. A couple of boats pointed out an orange buoy and I turned towards it. That's when the organizers barge blew their horn and 20 or so large racing boats all turned right at me going full speed. Apparently, I was on the wrong side of the line. I was able to thread the needle between two boats but it was a close call.
I waited my turn for the dinghy class race and found the competition to be 9-10 small boats of various sizes. I was the only kayak. When the horn sounded for us, they all took off and left me in their dust. I was able to navigate the whole course, but not before being lapped by the big boats at least once. I had to tack at least once for every buoy. I lost sight of all of the other dinghy boats after the first turn.
At the end of the race, there was a large flotilla of boats tied together in the middle of the lake celebrating a fun evening. I joined them for a few minutes before heading to shore to put my boat away for the evening.
Lessons learned.
1) Know where the start line is! Especially if you're the smallest boat in the race.
2) Learn to sail to a target without having to 'double back' (there must be a nautical term for this) which cost me a lot of time.
3) My Klepper sailing rig is not going to win any racing medals. But that's fine with me.
All in all, a fun outing and a new adventure in my Klepper. I'll try to get some pictures next time.