2-22-2014 Racing

by Pam

Cool-ish water temperatures, plenty of sunshine and lots and lots of wind. Did we sail? You bet your Butterfly we did. Oh sure there was some hesitation with all the activity of the college sailors being out and the Lasers being out … both of which were spending some time with their masts sideways, but we decided, eh, piece of cake.  Doug and I only brought one boat so Bruce and Paul hustled to get Doug a boat in order to get four sailors on the water on this blustery day. I'd spent some time prepping the boat I'm going to sail this year and it was all ready to go. Doug grabbed the top half of the mast and I grabbed the bottom half and we learned yet again that all Butterfly masts are not made equal. They didn't fit together. There is no way to prepare for the senior moments of an excellent sailor that just doesn't sweat the details (we added color coded tape to the mast parts when we got home). So we were down to 3 boats. I opted for the committee boat.

Did I mention it was windy? We got the first race off and Paul had the lead at the top mark. All was well until they completed the first triangle and headed to the top mark for a second time. Two got around, one tipped shortly after rounding and another tipped shortly before rounding … both about the same time. The committee boat already had four people on board and after we pulled the sailors from the water we were up to six. One of which left about an inch of water in the boat after he opened the leg of his foulies.

After some effort, we managed to free the masts from the bottom of the lake and got everyone sorted out and back upright. The tippers were game to continue and the non-tipper said he'd be willing to call it a day. Did we sail? You bet your Butterfly we didn't. 

Instead we spent the next hour draining boats and washing masts and sails. 

Oh, and I did get to sail Doug's boat back in while the rescue crew inspected the water moccasin they pulled on board while hauling up marks (or did it come from the sailor's pants and they only noticed it when pulling marks). By the time we were sailing in, according to CSC's weather station, the wind was gusting to 29 and there were some good sized waves to lose the bow in.

Next week we revert to our regular start time with the first gun at 10:30.