Our premier M24 event of the year was the 2012 North American Championships in San Francisco hosted by the San Francisco Yacht Club.  This was a premier event with professional race management, an international on-the-water jury, random weigh-in's every day, plus great shoreside facilities.  In addition is was breeze on (20-25 knots) every day!

In this event there were boats from the US, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, and Switzerland -- most with completely pro teams.  Many boats also had on-the-water coaches and support boats (which we didn't).

We started the the regatta mid-pack and gradually worked our way up to the bottom end of the top third which consisted of the very top boats.  Each day we made some subtle changes which helped.  By the end of the regatta we were solidly racing the top boats and in the last race we lead all the way around until a spinnaker halyard jammed and a couple of boats passed us.

We ended up finishing 4th out of the US boats and 7th overall including the international boats -- not too bad considering it was our first big M24 event!