Thank you, Alex Upchurch!

So we had 15 knots of WSW wind tonight, dying down to some 6 to 10 NW (rough guess), just before another storm hit. (We were lucky: the rain started just when all sails were back in the locker.)
I thought, I could use today's race training to improve some of my high-wind skills. (For real pros, 15 knots is not that high, but for me it is still quite new terrain.) So I asked to be paired up with one of our experienced crews and that's were Alec comes in!
I had such a good time in this race training! My jib was always perfectly trimmed, my boat was flat, Alec moved so swiftly through the tacks! After sailing a lot with white sailors or even non-sailors, this was so wonderful! I could give all my attention to improve my steering and to find that perfect point of sheeting for the reach. Knowing that I have a thinking and swiftly acting crew, I spent most of my time looking up into the sail and experimenting to make it look right, get my ticklers flying and the boat maybe planing. It's really wonderful how fast those little Albacores are and how easy to sail when there's a great crew taking care of things. Alec, your are such a quite guy and I have surely annoyed you by chatting all the time, often just with myself. That's why I am writing this message in your honour.
Thank you, fellow sailors at J-Town. And thank you, Alex Upchurch!