Se retrouver en plein champ

Bay Champs. That's French isn't it? Whatever. Dean and I sailed in the Bay Champs Regatta last weekend hosted by the Fleet 53 gang out of Treasure Island. Dang they have a lot of Vanguard 15s there. 14, included two of us from Fleet 76, hit the water for this one day regatta. This was the first time Dean and I had sailed together since the Fall Dinghy last year, and without any practice time before hand, we suffered two next to last place finishes to kick off the 8 race event. We managed to climb back into 9th place overall, one point out of 8th. Not bad, I guess. The highlight for us was a brief moment of greatness. A good start, decent tactics (no major mistakes) and some hard hiking got us to the weather mark in second place. After rounding, we surfed past the one boat in front and found ourselves leading the pack for the first time in about 20 something years. Cool! Unfortunately, a tactical error on my part, mistaking the start line buoy for the leeward mark and calling for a premature gybe, cost us several boats and we found ourselves once again in "the middle of the field." There's a French saying for that, you know.