3-26-11 RACING

by Pam

Should we stay or should we go? That was the question of the morning. Strong, puffy, multidirectional winds were forecasted and were most definitely what we received. Gary had seen the weather report and had gotten his sailing in on Thursday and had no intention of abusing his boat or body and every intention of watching the action from the front deck of WRBC. Smart man! We were almost a no go but then I believe Tom tipped the scales in the direction of going.

From my perspective, the result was utter discombobulated chaos. By the end of the day, Bruce had tipped three times (scary), Cameron had tipped twice and retired (wise), Cathy decided against sailing, then did, then didn’t, Tom was doing the slip and slide on his boat and even hollered out at one point, Burton put in an appearance in the third race and then lost his halyard and retired, Doug was trying his hand at multitasking and driving the rescue boat while taking videos and rescuing folks and was turning the already turbulent lake into a washing machine with all his zipping around, and I was reduced to constructing sentences with four letter words.

As for sailing … well it’s a no brainer. With wind like that, the heaviest and fittest person wins … if they stay upright. Sandy won all three races. I sailed passed Tom at one point and he said he was certainly keeping busy but he didn’t think it was all that bad. Either he’s getting tougher in his old age or I’m getting softer in mine.

Cathy joined our happy Butterfly family and bought Sandy’s old boat. We look forward to seeing more of her. She was lured out to the third race after a lull at lunch time and as it built, she hung in there a good long while until she and I both left the course.

Jackie received an old sail (#7567) and various Butterfly parts from the father of Jim, a young WRBC sailor who won the Butterfly Nationals in 1985 and 1987 but whose life was cut short at a very early age in a car/bicycle accident. If you see sail #7567 on the course, please take the time to stop and forget your troubles and remember this young sailor and his family and make the most of your day.

Pictures and videos of the day are being loaded into the photo album.