Our New "Discovery"

Greetings from Discovery, a new and extremely recent addition to our nautical fleet. We are aboard our 27-foot Ranger Tug "Discovery" (!!!) for Bodhi's three-day Marblehead Junior Race Week Regatta. We purchased the boat in nearby Salem, Mass., and followed the yard's recommendation to take an overnight orientation to further acquaint ourselves with the boat, to work out any kinks. When we asked to expand that offer into a three-night test-run in Marblehead for junior race week, the yard was more than happy to oblige. So here we are, tied up at Tucker's Wharf in the heart of a well-populated harbor (of nearly 1,800 boats according to the harbormaster), feeling fortunate to welcome this new vessel into the family, to be surrounded by the rocky and more northern New England-y North Shore coast and to participate in the regatta in a covid-friendly way. More to come on boat details, but we are in Marblehead and focused on Bodhi's Laser racing!

Marblehead Junior Race Week is an annual regatta that hosts Optimists, 420s, and Lasers. With this year's pandemic protocols in place, there is little socializing. There are no skippers' meetings, no social events and no awards ceremonies. Via email, sailors submit a daily attestation to their health and agree to wear masks, maintain a 6-foot distance from others and stay in their "pods" or designated sailing groups. Most sailors are amped and undeterred by the prohibitions.

Bodhi worked hard to keep the boat flat on the first day of racing, with winds gusting 16+ knots, and had some exciting moments including rounding a windward mark in 5th place and finishing one race in 8th place (out of 20 boats). Unfortunately, Mom had had a personal power outage that morning and, upon returning to Discovery (after delivering Bodhi to the launching site that morning), I rested my head on a pillow "for a few minutes" and then awoke at 1 p.m. after three hours of deep sleep. With the reboot completed, we did get off the dock for the second day of racing in which Bodhi had an exciting few races including finishing 5th in once race. Winds were light and shifty and required focus and patience. The extremely light conditions on Wednesday resulted in no races getting off the ground. For anyone interested in results details, check out the following site and click on Laser Radial to see Bodhi's results:

https://theclubspot.com/regatta/cwe2GTH9VY/results

After racing, we met up with the Bodhi's pals from the Barrington Race Team for ice cream and then returned to the boat for take-out dinner from the nearby restaurant. With limited storage, Captain Dan said not to worry too much about provisioning for dinners-- this would be a summer vacation and we would "live off the land." Thank goodness for "The Landing" a restaurant a stone's throw away from our spot on the pier from which we ordered dinner two of our three nights.

oxo Pufflings