10-04-14 Racing

by Cathy

On Thursday afternoon, winds in excess of 60mph blew boats around quite a bit.  A few masts were broken or twisted, trees uprooted and lots of debris flew around.  On Friday, lots of people rescued boats that had gone ashore or flew into the reeds, straightened and righted boats, recovered life jackets in the reeds, etc.  Power outages continued in the area including my house. By Saturday morning, Greenspot had WIFI so checking e-mail, I discovered there was still no power at the boat clubs and Butterfly sailing might not occur since the power boat could not be lowered without electricity.

At CSC this Scot was Flying...

Then we had Bruce and Larry save the day by hooking up Bruce's generator to power the lift so we could have races on a beautiful day after the wind storm.  

Meanwhile, realizing the wind was light and not being sure of the races, I went out on my bike just in time to pass the boat club and see Gary heading out in the race committee boat.  So off I raced on my bicycle back home to grab my "blades" and walk down to the boat club - managing to get out in time for the second race.

For the first race, Gary reported Bruce, John, then Burton and for the second race, it was Burton, John, and Bruce.  Interesting. I was not around for the first race but I saw John come up from behind me in the second race and take off.  He is giving everyone a run for their money.  At one point I spoke to a SUP bystander suggesting that we were racing, indicating it would be better if she didn't pass right in front of me.  (Things were slow at that point so racing was not obvious . . .)  She asked who was ahead and I looked around and indicated it was Bruce.  Somewhere along the way that changed, and Burton jumped ahead.  So, lots of place changes while the wind just continued to dwindle - so we called it a day after the second race.

I keep reminding myself just to go down and really see what the wind is like.  Even when I have internet the predictions and CSC website may not be accurate enough.  The wind anemometer is still not working at CSC . . .  And where I live it is not always obvious what the wind will be like down at the lake - even though I'm only a mile away.  So, in the future I should just get down there ready to sail so as not to miss these beautiful fall days.  We should be entering a period of heavier air . . . though as a friend of mine says "if I want to be wrong I'll start trying to predict the future".