12/18/10 RACING

by Pam

No doubt about it, it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and there was a nice gentle breeze. Ok, I’m exaggerating. The wind was just plain lost and confused. We had a touch of a breeze and then we didn’t and then we did and didn't. Some floated in huge circles trying to get to the windward mark and some floated backwards and some, like me, were rather disenchanted with the wind. I sat and watched my tell tales slowly do 360s several times. I finally resorted to humming and singing the hokey pokey to keep my mind occupied. The slow stuff just isn’t my thing. Frank did an excellent job of getting in three races while constantly moving the course.

Bruce won the first two races and Gary got the last one. We handicapped Doug by putting him in a fleet boat with a short tiller extension and also put a camera in his hands. It didn't work. He had promised to stay behind me but just couldn’t help himself. He also just couldn’t help himself on the start line and pushed Bruce over early. He tried to be a good guest Butterflyer but it appears that you can take the sailor off a Laser but it’s hard to the Laser out of the sailor. We still need to work on his Butterfly manners.

I’m wondering if CSC has as much excitement on their docks pre-race like we do at WRBC. We really need to get a dock cam to capture these moments that seem to occur almost weekly. I think we could win one of those funniest video contests. Doug, being bad mannered again, sees Tom about to board his boat and announces that he needs to get his camera ready because Tom is going to fall in. Seconds later … yep … video moment. Bad Doug. So as I sailed away from the docks, Tom was standing there dripping wet, Doug was a little behind me and I heard him holler and looked back to see his main sheet tangled on the docks with him frantically trying to untangle himself as the wind started to catch the sail and then as I round the corner I see Miles stopped and hanging from docks making some sort of repair. I thought, Lord help me, I fit right in with this bunch. It made me smile.