Hyundai cup

Current location: Nynäshamn, Sweden

I woke up and peeked through the hatch to check the weather. Yup, it was just as windy as the weather forecast had predicted. Darn. Today was the big day – race day. I’ve been wanting to do a proper sail race for quite some time, but for some reason I just never got around to do it. Normally I take much pride in being “a cruiser” and not a sail racer, but I think every sailor should have participated in a race at least once in their lives. So when I a couple of weeks ago saw that there was a big sail race in town I messaged my friend Emelie and asked if she wanted to join. With a steady wind of almost 30 knots, we prepped the boat with as little sail as we could. Our Comfort 26 boat wouldn’t love that much wind. We were one of the first boats to start, and it didn’t take long before we weatherhelmed, badly. After about 30 minutes our skipper said she was struggling to steer properly, and that she was worried about pushing the boat too hard. We all agreed that we rather not break the boat or people, and aborted the race. It turns out that it was a good decision. Probably two dozen boats aborted the race, with our boat being the only boat that didn’t have broken people or broken things on it. I rather stay safe than sorry. I was a little disappointed to not have completed the race, but there will be plenty of times ahead when I can become a racer instead of a cruiser.