Stamford to Block Island Race part II By Randy Needham
	We hoisted chute again approaching block ... went past two competitors (including one in our class), dropped chute at the SE corner of block, and made for the gut.  Twice we hit lobster pots ... once we had to stop the boat and back it down to shake it off (because each time we hit one we would lose a half knot of boatspeed).
			We got through the gut around 1PM ... wind was building steadily and we changed from heavy #1 to #3.  Another boat we had been chasing for a few hours (Bombardino) made a similar change ahead of us ... but it went wrong and the sail started flapping in the breeze.  They turned downwind to fix it ... one of our guys reported that their life ring fell off the back and we thought perhaps they went back to retrieve it.  We monitored radio ... no word of distress.  Sunday we found out that they had a Man Over Board, but recovered the fellow promptly.  They chased us for the rest of the race but we finally put them under the horizon. The remainder of the race was all "uphill", a beat / very tight reach into the stiff NW wind, no tacks for 70 miles, just slogging to windward.  I slept a bit on the rail, along with the rest of the crew ... We finished at 7:18 PM (yes, less that 24 hours!).  We saw the only faster boat in our division (Mischievous) leaving the harbor as we came in ... but they owed us a LOT of time.  They were NOT happy to see us pull up so soon behind them.  We got to the dock around 7:45PM, unloaded the boat, re-flaked and repacked every sail.  I emailed the data log off the boat and shut down the computers.  I left the boat around 9PM, real darn tired. I didn't find out until Sunday, but we won our division (the division of fast PHRF boats), and also our fleet (29 boats in four divisions).  Excellent!  Sunday I used the phone ... our owner Mark Minkus was unable to attend the awards luncheon and hoped I would stand in.  I did.  Picture below: I'm accepting the "Commodore's Trophy", for Falcon's large margin of victory over second and third place finishers in division.