We started the day again with an hour delay on shore and then several hours wait on the water. A big effort was made to lighten the boat and make some changes to the set up in order to speed the boat up in light air. We started to leeward of the Shockwave but Rambler did a nice port tack start at the pin. The boat felt better sailing upwind and we rounded the mark just behind Rambler and a few lengths ahead of Shockwave. We held our own downwind against Rambler, but Shockwave closed the gap on us by the time we got to the leeward mark. The rounding went well and the weather string drop was nice. The boys in the back did some nice work on the beat and we closed a little on Rambler and extended nicely on Shockwave.
The set seemed to be going fine but just as the kite was nearing the top of the rig, it completely tore. We quickly got our next kite up but not before Shockwave caught up to us. We finished that race in second, just beating Rambler by 11 seconds corrected.
Now we switch the boat to offshore mode and start getting ready for the Bermuda race.
About Bella Mente
The original Bella Mente Racing campaign kicked off in 2006 with Key West Race Week, and since then owner and skipper Hap Fauth has had three additional racing yachts in the program.
Launched in September of 2018, the current Bella Mente is a Maxi 72 designed by Botin Partners in Spain and built by New England Boatworks in Rhode Island.
Sponsors
Leave a Reply