Palma day 2 - races 1-4 - Trial by fire

Race 1 - We made it around the course, but with some issues! This was our first experience with the chaos of 36 skiffs on a course together. We are learning how to deal with other boats. Ducking will be our friend from now on if it means we keep a good lane upwind. We are also learning to anticipate when we have to adjust our speed and angle ahead of time to make sure we can cross another boat or go behind them instead of gybing (this is super hard since the speeds and angles change with the waves and puffs).  Laylines are hard to call - working on that too. We had a major raft up with another boat at a gate mark in the first race (they did their turns). We think that's when we put a big hole in the bottom of our boat. After that we were in last, and just finished our laps. Positive thing about that race: we made it around without capsizing, and our communication to each other was good.

Race 2 - Got caught trying to back up at the start since we were too close to the line. Ended up on port behind the fleet right after the gun. Headed out to the right, which worked out well. Should have gone farther right than we did, but we made it around the next 3 legs smoothly. The wind picked up and we were a little slow upwind since our setup wasn't quite right. Finish - 16th - Okay! We know we can still do better.

Race 3 - We started late, but with a good amount of space around us. We had changed our rig settings and were tuned for more breeze. Our speed was good, and we motored to the left corner, tacked, and motored back to the windward mark. Rounded in the top ten, narrowly missing a capsized boat at the windward mark. We didn't set the kite right away since we wanted to get settled and stable first (the waves were big, and we were planing - Kristen kept saying "I can't see! Tell me where to steer!" Anyway that ended badly in a capsize, and we spent a while righting and capsizing over and over. We are working on how to make sure that we keep the boat upright as soon as we right it. One thing is that we need to get more speed going in to our first bear away, the slow speed bear away isn't working that well even though we do it during pre-start maneuvering just fine. So DNF in race 3.

Race 4 - We stayed on the beach grinding and laying fiberglass while the FXers went back out late in the day. We left the boat upside down with the epoxy curing and we will check it in the morning.

Forecast for tomorrow is light, hopefully some sea breeze fills in!