Tuesday, September 30, 2008

MoJoe Eeks Out Series Win

Well, overall it has been a great season for MoJoe and her crew. 2008 saw her re-emerge as an offshore warrior (Newport-Bermuda Race and Beringer Bowl Offshore Race) as well as a fierce competitor in the local series.

Each week she featured a tiny tweak here and a slight shave there, slowly bringing her back to racing form. She still has a long way to go, but the crew's labor was rewarded at the end of the summer with an unexpected series win by hanging onto first place with a slim margin of only 30 points. By unexpected, we mean that MoJoe was looking squarely at second place until a most-unbelievable situation came about:

"In order to win the series, we needed one of three possible outcomes to happen: We come in first, we come in second, or Heat Wave (J109) does not come in first. About halfway down the return leg of the course, it was pretty clear we weren't coming in first or second -- the other B-fleet boats were well ahead of us. In addition, Heat Wave was looking pretty good for the win -- Saga (J133) was first, but probably would correct lower, and Priceless (Carrera 29) was off our beam. It's possible that at 24s/m slower, Priceless (PHRF 96) may have been able to correct over Heat Wave (PHRF 72), but it would have been close.

So, there we were, munching second-place sour grapes when all of a sudden blue (harbormaster) strobes start flashing over in the harbor and the Race Committee comes over the radio, saying that the race had been cancelled! A huge coal barge was leaving Salem Harbor, and all boats -- including us racers -- needed to clear the channel. No race meant no win (and therefore, no points) for Heat Wave, and thus we were able to hang on to our top spot in the standings."

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