Saturday Racing 10-26-13
at 10.27.2013
by Cathy
Never listen to the weather report? That
might be extreme but often we will discard days for sailing that end up being
beautiful if we listen too much to the reports. There was the possibility
of drizzle and scattered showers. We got lucky. It was a beautiful
day with a nice temperature in the mid-60's and wind in the mostly 5-10 mph
range.
Two races back to back, then a short
break for lunch and one more race. All courses were Olympic and Burton set the course perfectly - we never
needed to move the marks. Eight sailors on the line off and on, though
when the wind picked up only four finished the last race. Bruce and Paul
were close in all three races, with Bruce first in the first two, and Paul
first in the last. Frank usually 3rd with John 4th until the last race
when John came in 3rd and Frank 4th. It all looked very competitive from
my view on the committee boat. And what a great day.
A bit of a mishap with a Laser
capsized during the last race. A 23mph puff at 1:20 probably
contributed to that capsize and probably what prompted others to go in. We
managed to rescue him but would have been easier with a longer painter. One
sailor commented "your painter probably can't be too long, but it can
certainly be too short". With a longer one the rescue boat can stay
further away and gives everyone more options, so safer. We were too close
when the Laser came up and it flopped over on us, almost narrowly missing Burton, but unfortunately not quite.
I now have more respect for both rescuer
and rescued. I've usually been on the rescued side, but rescuing is
hard work and can be tricky. Unfortunately the sticky mud at White Rock Lake
does not always lend itself to self-rescue... so the best we can do is make it
as safe as possible on these unpredicted beautiful days.
