This past weekend Lake Murray, SC hosted the annual Outback Cup. The cruising fleet was made up of roughly 50 boats ranging in size from 22' to 40'. This included my 1981 Hunter 30 which was rated about in the middle of the fleet. My crew, Tim (helmsman), and I nailed the start and proceeded to past many of the boats on the first leg and around Doolittle Island. For most of you, pay attention in the coming months to the History channel. A B25 bomber was just raised out of the lake and sent to Alabama for restoration. Doolittle Island, also known as Bomb Island, was the practice range during WWII for Doolittle's Raiders prior to the bombing of Tokyo. Anyway, back to the race.....as we rounded the island we past even more of the fleet. Coming out of the turn we had 6 boats ahead of us and we were closing in on them too. Half way through the last leg the wind died! Although the Hunter 30 is a great boat, it is not a good light air boat especially when you don't have light air sails. We eeked out as much speed as we could but an S2 and a Hunter 34 past us. Both boats were in our division. We ended up 4th in our division and 9th (I think) out of the cruising fleet. Not bad for my first race as skipper and for this boat. Had the wind held up we would have easily take 3rd maybe even 2nd or 1st for our division. I right this not to blow my own horn but to praise the Hunter 30 as a great sailing boat. She was easy to handle and was fast in moderate and heavy air. But alas not a light air boat. Maybe between now and next year I can afford a spinnaker to fly. Hats off to the winners in the blue fleet.... 1st Dee Scarboro in Breezin, a US 30 2nd Chris Robnett in Uff-da, an S2 3rd Robbie Sweet in a Hunter 34 (Robbie if the wind hadn't died you'ld never have caught us) It was a great race and a great time.