Sailing in Santa Monica Bay

26 (!) years have passed since I last sailed in the Santa Monica Bay. It was a very moving moment, when I sailed out of Marina del Rey and the California Yacht Club as crew on a J24 for a 3hr Regatta. To top it all, the husband of the Skipper Susie is German and has the same name as my dad.
It was a great sailing day, average 10kn wind and 0,75m sea, blue sky with some clouds. Just perfect. My job was weight for the most part and flying the spinnaker when we were sailing downwind. It was great fun. Not too many boats were racing today, I enjoyed that as well. Maybe 5 in our class, 15-20 in total. We all had a good day. By the time the boat was back out of the water and all cleaned and packed away it was already a 6 hr "working" day.

Here are some pictures of the day.
Follow the link to see all: http://sailing.smichah.de/#!album-88

Mary and ? (sorry, I forgot the name ;-( )

 Susie, the skipper

 Werner

 Mary

 A close start….The boat at the right is the jury boat

 Everyone comes close the closer it gets to the start

 These guys were just inches away from hitting us.

 Chips and drinks to the races end….

 So nice, when you can just quickly lift your boat up…That's the J24 "Take 5"

And since that all went so well, Mary (my friend who is a crew most of the time and who took me along) and I were asked to crew for the regatta in Ventura next week. It's a 2 day regatta. We agreed, that's going to be a lot of fun as well, way more serious than today and I get to see a new place. Cool to be on a boat again with no engine - so sail out of the box and back into it. Just like I do on the lakes in Germany on the same size boats.