My first Sailboat race

After 4 weeks of practice driving a 30 foot sailboat through the warm waters of Maui, I was ready to compete in my first sailboat race.  This was a wahine driver race, so every boat had to have a female driver.  I was curious how the race would happen, as I had never seen such thing.  Before the race, we had some time to practice, working on smooth turns and quick recoveries.  There was a race boat and a buoy placed in the water making the start line, and another buoy for the boats to turn around.  One person on our boat the time keeper for the start of the race.  A horn sounded, notifying us that there was three minutes until the race began.  During this time I just kept our boat close to the start area making turns and loops, timing it perfectly so that we cross the line immediatly once the race begun.  It was the skippers job to navigate which direction we would head, depending on the wind.  So we headed out making a few tacks towards the buoy.  I steered clean around the buoy, and the way back was only a few quick jibs, and we were close to the finish line.  For the first race we placed in 5th, then proceeded to have 2 more races, placing 5th, and 6th, out of about 15 boats.  This was an amazing experience, and I am so thankful I got the opportunity to achieve my dream of not only learning to sail, but being the helmsman.