Racing Rosario in Lagos

After arriving from the Azores and completing the Atlantic Crossing, we stayed in the marina without doing any sailing for a week. The rest was nice, but we soon felt the hunger to sail. The local sailing club (Lagos Navigator’s Club) was holding a friendly regatta and we figured why not.

It was the first time that we raced Rosario, so initially we were a bit nervous.

I timed our approach to the starting line poorly and thought we would have enough time to eat our lunch. We crossed the line in last place and comically waved to the starting boat. All the boats were headed down the ‘favored’ end of the line, so we chose the opposite, figuring that we had to try something different. As we made the first tack we quickly saw that we had gained almost all of our lost time and a couple of boats were forced to tack around us; we were on the favored tack (starboard). After rounding the first mark we were in third place!

After another hour of racing we found ourselves in first place! It was thrilling. The wind was blowing at about 20 knots and we had to tack about 5 times before crossing the finish line. Tni was amazing; she kept flying across the cockpit to crank in the genoa sheets. We could not believe we were the first boat across the line. The handicapping process pushed us down to third place, but nothing could take away our glorious moment. Someday I bet we’ll do some more racing. We both loved it.

Here’s a photo of the third place price we received at the award dinner.