Back to the beginning: Santa Barbara Skiff Fest day 1.

Last year this was my first event on US soil, well ocean. I'd learnt to sail the Moth, sort of, in Sydney and had relocated with work to SoCal. Boat arrived, we still weren't members of a club saw the event on the Inter Web and thought, well its a skiff festival, must be Moths. Well got that wrong, last year I was the only Moth in a hoard of I14s and 29ers. This year we're more organised and Nat, Eric, and Dan ( who drove down from San Fran) are rewarded with awesome conditions. Given its been a year, I'm pretty happy. Standard of my sailing and racing has really improved, I've been to my first Worlds, got a new boat, been through several rigs and settings, and just had a blast in this awesome class. Roll on the next 12 months, yeehaa>

Now our normal service will be resumed and back to the racing.

The June gloom, gave way to sunshine as we sailed out and we were on foils from the getgo. Dana ran a tight program in building breeze and well/ chop. Wind steadied at 15 - 18s, and we cranked out three races. I managed a 1,2,1 with Nat, 2,1,2 and Dan and Eric catching up fast as they get used to their boats. My new foil worked really well on old settings until wind built but managed to find a new setting quickly and ground it out in the third race. My gybing was awful, I don't think I pulled one off during the races despite have a great practice on the way out. Practice practice practise tomorrow. Very strange only having 3 races after 4 months of 4 - 6 races at events, quite relaxed really. Back on the schedule tomorrow.