Tipsey Turtle Race 2025

 Tipsy Turtle Race 2025

Is it becoming a habit? We took part in the Tipsy Turtle Race this Sunday, it's the inaugural race having replaced the Mary Wells race named in honor or our sailing club's most appreciated social leader.

Anyway, about the day.

Awesome with a bit of OS at the end of the day.

We planned on an 07:55am dock departure, the crew arrived on time ( they're really good about that ) but while I was fiddling about trying to put the Virtual mark for the race into the chart plotter, we missed our 07:55 departure time, it was 08:05! But we made it easily to the first bridge so no harm done, in fact I can reduce the time to the bridge by another 5 mins and we should be good.

While motoring to that bridge ( Atlantic Blvd Bridge - opens on the hour and half hour ) myself and the crew were on deck doing our best to roll down the sail Cradle Cover ( that's Doyle's equivalent to 'Stack Pack' ) it was ok, but not as neat as I had hoped, turns out it was not so bad.

We got to the inland side of the Hillsboro Inlet bridge and waited for a few minutes with some of the other club boats, there was an incoming current of 3.9knots in the middle of the channel at the bridge, we had to push the engine to make way but not an issue, we just have to mindful that the current can push us towards one side of the bridge fenders depending on the state of the tide.

Once past the bridge, we continued to motor all the way out onto the Ocean to HI buoy. Peggy took the wheel and turned the boat into wind so we could raise the Mainsail. New practice for our crew, Carol & Gail ( again, so the ride a few weeks ago in the storm did not deter them :) ) There was almost no wind but we were able to line up the boat for the start and then, just when we were to turn towards the line, the wind died. Our chart plotter was effectively a piece of electronic art work - middle of the screen was the compass rose and both the TWD ( True Wind Direction) and the AWA ( Apparent Wind Angle ) markers were dancing around in conflict every few seconds. Wind Speed 1.0 knots, Speed through the water 0.0000knots. We were going nowhere!

Spruce Goose was pointing at us at one point but they were moving, may have gotten within 100 feet and they turned, we were on a Stbd Tack, so we were the stand on vessel - of course, it was arguable that with the wind so low then were we on a Stbd tack? Well, that was the state when our sails were on the Port side of the boat.  Anyway, Spruce Goose was able to Gybe and turn away. We finally got a bit of wind and could see a trail behind our boat - we're moving! 

The start was at 10:00 but we didn't cross the line until 10:39, so, what do you do when you cross the start line 39 minutes late - you Celebrate! We did.

Fellin Nauti was ahead of us. I went out of the cockpit and on deck, our sails were looking good, I eased the Main outhaul a couple of inches and we started to see better progress, we soon passed Fellin Nauti, wow! We're sailing. We passed them to windward, sorry guys, we stole what little wind you had 😉

We made our way to the Virtual mark and zoomed in on the chart plotter as we neared the mark and approached it quickly, we turned Eastward then North heading back to the finish line.

Sailing was easy, we made pretty decent speed despite the light winds but we did get a VHF call from Feelin Nauti asking if we had received the latest position of the Virtual mark that had been published at 03:00am --- What! Well, it's too late now as we have already rounded 'our mark' so carry on.

Now, why did this happen?

Astrid, our Racing Chair, had published the coordinates of the Virtual Mark days ago and I had put it into my Tablet running Aqua Maps. A.M. has two formats for waypoint input, our chart plotter had a 3rd option, between them all, I had been able to screw up the input and it seems that our mark was about 1,000 feet North of the mark that everyone else had.   Come on guys - it's a fun race.

Once turned to the North, it was an easy Reach back to the finish mark. Carol took a pic as we crossed the line, we turned into wind to bring in the Genoa and to drop the main. Done for the day .... hmmm.

Back at the dock, we all work at stowing everything and getting the girls off the boat so that Peggy & I could pack our stuff and put the boat to bed for the night.  Last part was to make sure all of the thru-hulls were closed. That's when I realized we had a problem. 

We keep a puppy pad on the inside of the hull below where the tank shelf is located and we normally check that to ensure the Diesel tank is not leaking ( we repaired the tank in j2017 ). I also commented to Peggy that I smelt diesel. This was not really surprising as I had changed the water separator / fuel filter the other day and there could be some smell left over from that job. 

Turns out we had a leak from our Aluminum fuel tank ( read more about it here. )

Despite the tank woes, it was a great day out on the boat and the crew are getting even more involved in the running of the boat, the future looks good. We may even get some 'Eximius Crew' shirts

The After race party is tonight, we'll find out how we did, and we'll all share our stories of the Inaugural Tipsy Turtle Race.

See you on the water soon.

Paul 

Update 11/12/2025

We came 3rd in our group, 

2025 Tipsy Turtle 3rd Place Trophy 

Earned this cute wooden Turtle. Perfect Trophy for a perfect day on the water.

Here's a link to the race results: CLICK HERE 

We'll be back on the water in a couple of weeks. till then we'll get the Tank Fixed and fix the weeping Rudder post packing.

But we will see you on the water.

Paul