After a long and tiring night it was good to get racing.  The start in Naniamo is always dramatic given the close quarters and crowds ashore.  Ian pulled off a great start, although there was considerable carnage behind us.  Two large boats collided and another ripped their spinnaker.

We elected to not use a spinnaker given the short duration that we would use it -- this proved to be a wise choice and gave us much needed maneuverability that others didn't have.  After exiting the Naniamo harbor we ran the whole way to French Creek picking our way through the islands. As the wind built we reefed our main, which we later shook out as the wind dropped.

In the end we finished about 20 minutes behind DragonFly (not in our division, but a competitor in the overall elapsed time event) and well ahead of the rest of our fleet.  We thought we had done well, but you never know for sure.

When the results were read we got a 1st place with a total of 35 points.  The VI360 is a high-point scoring system with the winning yacht earning points equal to the number of boats in their division, times the leg multiplier (which in this case was 3) plus bonus points (5 for 1st, 3 for 2nd, and 1 for 3rd).

We now have a total of 35 points are leading our division,  although it is very early in the event and things can & will change rapidly...

Off to Comox tomorrow with a similar setup...