Battle of the Bay
April 2023
The first annual Battle of the Bay regatta* took place at Houston Yacht Club, on Galveston Bay. This regatta was exhilarating and had lots of excitement on and off the water. We arrived at the sailing event for the first day of racing early Saturday morning with lots of excitement, since it was both of my sister's first official competition. We prepared our boats and sails with my sisters needing quite a bit of help because of the difficulty of rigging for the heavy winds to come.
Once we had completed setting up our boats, we waited around and listened to the skippers meeting before heading out to the water. The wind was predicted to be very heavy with gusts up to 26 miles per hour and a consistent breeze of 18 or so. Once we had launched from the small rocky beach that you can see in the pictures below, we felt the heavy air hitting our sails with lots of force causing us to hike** for the majority of the day. By the end of day one, we had completed 4 races and had some great finishes and lots of fun on the water.
On the second day of racing, there was the unfortunate occurrence of storms containing lightning and thunder moving towards the yacht club. The race committee was unfazed, though, and decided that it would be safe to sail when there was lighting in the area. Despite the danger, most athletes headed to the racecourse worried that if they did not participate that they would lose positions. Then, surprising all of us, the starting sequence began with thunder still sounding in the distance. Once the race had been completed, I found that I had finished in a good position of 5th. However, once the parents got involved, the race committee decided to call the day of racing to an early end.
*regatta- a sailing sporting event
**hike- when one puts their feet under a strap in the center of the boat and then leans out, balancing out the weight to maintain a flat boat