1-3-2015 Racing

                                                                                                                                                    by Cathy

Photo 1-3-2015 by Paul M.
Cathy pulls her Butterfly
onto the pad.

The forecast looked good:  projected winds WSW, 5-10 mph, high of 54, mainly sunny skies in the afternoon.  After several days of gloom, sunny sounded good and would be key.  It had rained a lot the night before and the lake was higher than anyone had seen it in some time.  At least that would make it easy to get the boats on and off the pads!

We gathered at 11:00 and off in the distance we could see the sky lightening a little so we headed out, hoping the sun would make an appearance which it did after an hour or so.

Bob and C. ran the races, setting up the first 2 as Olympic with wind from the west and then a W 2 1/2 with wind from the south.  Then again, it was sometimes hard to tell where the wind was coming from or if there was any at all.  C. stated that he held the tell-tale up and it made two circles around the pole - so the wind was pretty much coming from every direction at some times.  It sure seemed that way on my sailboat - where I had occasions of not knowing which tack I should be on and then just giving up and sitting there in irons and/or going backwards. 

Photo 1/4/2015.  Water is high. Too cold and windy
for everyone except cormorants, gulls, and pelicans.
Not like yesterday.

We had 5 Butterflys on the line which was pretty good for a day that started off so chilly.  Paul managed 1st in all 3 races.  We tried to give him some competition and I almost thought I had him in that 1st race.  James and Doug G. just kept moving up in place and giving Burton a little more competition.  I just kept falling further behind and have been reminded in light air, I need to sit as far forward as possible to get the transom out of the water.

It's actually more fun when we all finish pretty close together as we did in . . . maybe that was the 2nd race.  So, lots of improvement out there and a beautiful day for our first sail of the year.  Cheers and Happy New Year to that!