8-03-25 Regatta

The sun was shining, and the humidity was very low as we stood by the pond and looked at the reflection of the trees on the glassy surface of the pond.  It was a great setting to contemplate nature and the meaning of life, but it was not so good if you were planning to have a sailing regatta.

Anyway, we watched as sailors mistakenly launched their boats during the “Fun Sailing” time and then struggle to get them back in the light winds.  Being the optimistic kinda’ guys we are, we patiently waited for regatta time to roll around and hoped the wind would fill in.  The good news is that it did, off and on.

8 Skippers showed up to race with 4 DF95’s and 4 S1M’s. Unfortunately, a couple of the skippers had to drop out before the race due to electronics problems.  That left us with 3 DF’s and 3 S1M’s to compete.  I brought the club’s new RC Rescue boat to continue with its sea trials.

The racing was challenging because of the light shifty winds, and unfortunately the weeds were also in play today.  It seems that theweeds can be “not bad” or “really bad” depending on which way the wind blows.  Today, the weeds were somewhere in between and seemed to get better as the day went on.

I think today’s uber-light winds tended to slightly favor the very light DF’s, although the Soling’s were always in the fight.  You can see that the Soling’s scores are very close together and not far behind the DF’s.  

We got in 11 races today, and when the scores were added up Cliff Martin took first overall, and first in the DF class.  Paul Mercer hasn’t had a chance to sail with us much this year, but he came ready to race and took second overall with his DF.  Herb Dreher took fourth overall and was first in the Soling One Meter class.

Good going everyone!

The RC Rescue boat was able to rescue 4 boats (1 with electronics issues, a couple of boats caught on weeds, and one boat with a keel caught on a mark anchor line).  I thought itperformed pretty good but it’s still a learning process to drive what amounts to a swamp buggy, using just the right stick on Spectrum transmitter.

Many thanks to Steve White who showed up to call the line and help us keep score.

My thanks to all the skippers who came to sail with us.

Until next time.

Cliff Martin, Commodore