Midwinter’s East this year was a challenging event for me. I had a new crew and we had very little time in the boat. There were also a lot of very good people there and almost 100 boats from around the country.

We arrived at the event three days early. We spent the whole first day making the boat perfect and used the other two days to practice and get more familiar with the venue. The first two days of practice went great. We were going well and getting good tips from our coach Udi Gal.

The first day of the event was poor. There were storm fronts and thunderstorms. The race committee was only able to get one race off before there was lighting, and we had to go in. The one race we had offered very tricky conditions and huge wind shifts. We struggled and finished the day poorly.

Nothing much changed over the next couple days of the event. The race committee struggled to get races off in the conditions – shifty with huge potholes.

The last day was a little bit better, however it was still really tricky. We started well and had good boatspeed, but we could not figure out the course. We ended up finishing 11 overall.

I am so thankful to the BYCMSSF so that I could have this opportunity, and I am looking forward to applying what I learned and racing the next event.