5-18-25 Regatta

It was good to have some sunshine and wind, and no rain, all at once.  A rare occurrence these days.  On top of that, 13 skippers showed up to sail; 4 brought their Soling’s and 9 brought their DF95’s.  It’s worth noting that we had participation of skippers from the Model Yacht Club at Pine Hills, the Greater Worcester Model Yacht Club and the Nashua Model Yacht Club.  Thank you, guys, for supporting our club.

Of course, the weather challenge for the day was that the winds were very “swirly” and gusty, and there was a decided hole-in-the-wind right in the center of the course.

The gusty winds and large fleet led to some interesting mark rounding’s and frequent changes in lead boats.  It was not unusual for boats at the back of the pack to catch a gust and surge to the front; or for boats in the front to hit the wind hole and sit helplessly while boats in the back caught up just in time for the wind to also pick up.  This would then lead to a scrum of boats at the next mark.

It would be fair to say that there was probably some frustration during the race, but few harsh words were said, and we got in 12 races before it started to rain.  Sadly, a couple of skippers had to leave early due to other commitments.  Also, John Whalen had to drop out of the last race because he was sailing with a FM crystal radio and one of the other 2.4mH radios was on his frequency and controlling his sails…..strange.

At the end, Drew Carlson was leading the DF95 fleet and Greg LaPlante led the Soling fleet.

Finally, thank you to all the skippers for joining us to sail.

Until next time.

Cliff Martin, Commodore