Saturday, June 7th was the Racing the Catalina 22 day. Okay, so maybe it was the Utah Lake Festival Regatta for Keelboats, along with Catamarans and Dinghies. Organized and sponsored by The Bonneville School of Sailing along with the Utah Sailing Association, this may have been our best race yet.
It was a day that had a little bit of everything in store for us. We started Race 1 with a slow but constant wind speed of 5 knots. Our top speed on our Cat 22′ was just over 2 knots. Pretty slow, but at least we were moving. For the first race we wanted to test out our racing jib/Genoa sail which had never caught a fresh breeze since we purchased the boat. It’s a North Sails Genoa made from “Diax” diagonally reinforced cloth, the Regatta Genoa is built for speed and to last.
During Race 2, the wind died and we almost did too. It was a painfully slow start for us and every boat on the water. What took us about an hour to finish the first race, took us 2.5 hours to finish the second race on a different course but same distance. We took down the racing Genoa, and put our standard 150 jib back up to see if we could catch more wind at slower speeds. It helped a little, however, when there is no wind, there’s only so much you can do.
By the end of Race 2 the wind picked up and again and so did our spirits. In fact, it picked up so much that we were up to 13 knots of wind and thanks to our new handy dandy app on our iphone we knew we were traveling 5.95 knots. On the water in our Cat 22′ it felt as if we were flying. Imagine my disappointment we I found out that 5.95 knots is around 6.847 mph, a a slow jogging speed! We didn’t have the time to switch back to the racing Genoa so we stuck with our classic red and white striped 150%. Our Anchor Gloves came in handy too when we need that extra grip while tacking and adjusting the sails in high winds.
It was a great day to be out on the water and such a thrill to race against some of the best sailors in Utah. Check out the best pics we caught during the race and our latest video. All in all, our Catalina 22 isn’t the fastest racing boat, but it’s a lot of fun and easy to sail.
“I found out that 5.95 knots is just under 5 mph. ”
As a Catalona owner I enjoyed your Videos.
Just thought I should mention the typo or computation error above.
Happy Sails
Ed
Got the typo fixed. Thanks for catching that Ed!