5-17-2014 Racing

by Cathy (plus Burton's race details)

Pictures

Not too many Butterflyers on the line today and it turned out to be a beautiful, though a little windy, and definitely wild day.

The wind should have been steady from the South, 15-18 mph, but we had several capsizes. One before, two during, and one after the race. Yes, race, singular.

Four boats made it to the line, but after starting the first sequence we headed back in and righted a boat that capsized in the harbor. Burton expertly stepped onto the dagger board from the committee boat and sailed it up to the dock. I thought it was not the best time to point out I hadn't had much experience with driving the motor boat. Burton talked me through it and let me practice a bit before the day was out. Now I realize it's a good thing to know.

The first race looked great, all the sailors pretty close together. Dave has Saturdays free now so he sailed his Butterfly and was keeping up well. Marshall was also sailing in a Butterfly today, his first race since buying his boat. On the reach after the jibe mark, Marshall took Bruce and John up high. John stayed high and was able to get an overlap on Bruce and Marshall from the inside and he rounded first, just ahead of Bruce. On the downwind leg, Bruce jibed early and rode that puff straight down to the leeward mark, leaving the others behind at the second leeward mark rounding.

It was fun to watch, but before all was said and done we had two more capsizes.

John finished first, just ahead of Marshall in a close finish!

After all the rescuing we were fairly exhausted (or I was anyway) and we headed in to clean sails, masts, and eat lunch. Burton and I went back out, picked up marks, then called it a day, and put up the committee boat.

Unfortunately, Dave's dagger board was not tied on and it floated away when we left for the 2nd rescue. I walked along the shore line looking for it and then realized there was yet another capsized boat. This time Bruce and Jerry went out to get it along with Jim, the owner of the boat. I filmed that rescue of the boat from shore and then was glad to call it a day.

It's a good time to get all Butterflys in good working order since the Wrangle is fast approaching on June 7th and 8th. Meantime, if anyone is interested in Snipe sailing, the Snipe Southwestern is this coming weekend, May 24th and 25th. There are some fleet boats and/or opportunities to skipper or crew. In between there is the WRBC Championship which will be a good time to practice for the Wrangle. Summertime is close enough, time to sail!

From Pam:

Paul, Doug and I are at DinghyFest at Rush Creek this weekend on Sunfish. We got in four races and have had the same wet and wild ride. Lots of flipping and tipping. We even had an 18 ft skiff on the race course that has been fun to keep track of. They're up, they're down, they're out ... mast change to a smaller rig at lunch ... they're up, they're down, hmmm ... the sailed looks a bit shredded. We were split on bets that they wouldn't make it down the ramp with the onshore breeze or out of the harbor but they proved us wrong.

The VX-Ones are buzzing all over the place lapping us multiple times and having a ball. They turn downwind and go flying by like they're on fire with the hull humming and the sailors grinning ear to ear.  Starboard and leeward rights don't apply ... they try to be courteous but we folks in the little boats just get the heck out of the way and watch with open mouths as they disappear from sight.

Report from the junior regatta at Grapevine was that the wind was alot less than what we or White Rock had and a Facebook post shows there was no wind at the DCYC regatta with the water looking glassy and the post saying they timed out and didn't finish a race. How can that be?