Jakatar, a Corbin 39 in Portugal: Regatta in Peniche

Jakatar on the upwind leg. Photograph taken my Manuel.

I called Manuel on channel 9. "What's the starting time? Over."
"Jakatar, in fifteen minutes at exactly 10:45, over."

Zé, a ship captain and sailor had an idea: "Why don't we sail exactly seven and a half minutes south, then tack and go full speed toward the starting line."

It sounded like good a plan. We started in last position.

The warm sun tinged the ocean to a deep blue, and the wind was a nice 12-15 knots. I was at the wheel with all three sails up doing 6 knots, even with a dirty bottom, and I didn't answer the phone when it rang and rang in my pocket.

By the time we rounded the first buoy west of Cape Carvoeiro, I had passed two Bavarias, a Beneteau First, and a heavy Swedish boat whose name I can't remember right now.

On the downwind leg, we eased out the 475 square feet genoa and soon Jakatar was hitting 7.4 kt with the wind abaft the port beam. We passed another Beneteau First, and started closing the gap on the seven boats ahead of us.

I was happy as a lazy dog sunning his hide. This meant I didn't have to scrape the bottom before sailing to the Algarve. Nine or ten dives to clean the propeller should do. I'll scrape the bottom down south in the Culatra anchorage where the water is warm and shallow.

On the upwind leg, the fowled bottom made catching up impossible.

We finished 8 in a fleet of 15. I might have come in the top places with a clean bottom, but that's probably just bragging on my part.

When the gang was finishing lunch back at the club, I realized I hadn't taken a single photograph out on the water. Luckily, my friend Manuel emailed me some high quality pics.