Early Morning I wake up. In the early morning darkness its hard to get oriented or motivated. I am not a morning person. I don't have a lot of time to do everything that I need to do this morning, so I get into gear and start my day focussing on everything I still need to do to accomplish the impossible: win Winter Vashon.

Morning I gave myself 45 minutes to get to Shilshole Bay marina, pick up my foulies, life jacket and boots from my Olson 30, "Carrera", and get on my way to Tacoma. I am not racing Winter Vashon on Carrera this winter, her crew and the boat itself is taking a break, and not too many people were into the idea of doing a long tough winter race in the cold and inhospitible quarters that an Olson 30 offers.

Start I am on Giant Slayer, on the bow, calling the start. Its a short reach across the start line with decent wind for a spinnaker run up Colvos Passage. The wind is better this year than last. In our class are two other Santa Cruz 27s, a couple of Moore 24's and some other slightly larger boats, including Cherokee.

Noon We have been running up Colvos Passage, catching up to several of the earlier starts. Cherokee has pulled slightly ahead, one of the SC27s is just behind, and we are still chasing the Moore 24 Eclipse. We surf through a pod of Orcas heading south through the fleet!

Afternoon Rounding the North tip of Vashon Island, still with some fair but lightening winds, we can't point as high as Eclipse. We loose them slowly beating pack up the Sound, but keep ourselves from crossing all the way to the East side, where the wind is rapidly shutting down. There is a large cluster of boats over there, near Des Moines, that are not moving. Dave knows these conditions, as he sails out of Des Moines; he recognizes what is happening and we slowly make our way towards Point Robinson.

Sunset We have ghosted along a zephyr of a breeze that extends from the West shore North of Pt Robinson to just a hundred yards offshore. Dave got us here, and in so doing left a great number of boats behind, in the now dead winds in the middle of Puget Sound between Point Robinson and Des Moines. It is very tough getting around Point Robinson, as our momentum is fading. But as we do, the Choate, in our class, silently crosses our bow and heads towards the finish.

Evening By the lights of Tacoma we silently play variously the spinnaker and the light number one to keep moving. We have passed a number of boats still, and know of only two boats in our class that are ahead of us. We saw Eclipse rounding Point Robinson ahead of us, and the Choate. They are both somewhere in the darkness ahead. We know of many others in our class that we have left behind.

Night At almost precisely ten o'clock we are reaching towards the finish at 4 knots with spinnaker up. I have been driving since before nightfall, and am very tired. John Edwards has been patiently playing the spinnaker and taking advantage of the puffs that come across the Sound from Tacoma. There is a little yellow bouy, exceptionally difficult to see, that marks the finish, and we are all straining to pick it out. There are some boats off in the distance coming down from the left now, but we will beat them, I am fairly certain.

Finish We finish and immediately douse. Everyone is very cold and our only thought is to get the boat into the shelter of the marina, get to the clubhouse to warm up, and deal with sails and lines later. Did we win? Did Eclipse and the Choate quit sometime during the light air drifting throught the night? Was there some unknown boat in our class that came out ahead?

Giant Slayer finished third in class in this year's Winter Vashon.