Our recent SYC Vashon Island was an exercise in frustration - we sailed very well (probably the best that I have seen), but still ended up with 4th thanks to not one but two parking lots.  Each time we got stuck we were passed by nearly all the boats in the fleet and had to sail back to the front, only to get parked up again.

In the end we simply didn't have enough time to get back in the hunt despite leading the fleet for most of the race.  A good friend of mine said that he never does any race with the word "Winter" or "Vashon" in it - I can see why!

Here is a picture of our first parking lot event near Robinson Point - this was near the leeward mark for the short-course fleet and we ended up spending some quality time here with our old friend DragonFly!
























Here is a picture of our second parking lot event in Colvos Passage.  We rode the southerly up the passage where at some point we knew it would switch to a northerly.  As it ended up the northerly (which was a cold wind) was at the ground level with the southerly up higher - total wind shear.  We ended up stuck with the top half of the mast sailing in the southerly and the bottom half in the northerly - the end results is that we didn't go anywhere.  At the same time ALL the smaller boats all passed us looking like flaming geniuses.  After about a frustrating 20 minutes we managed to get going again, only have to work our way back through the fleet again.