Threatening Skies

With the forecast of thunderstorms in the area the fleet headed out prepared for the unexpected. We had nice winds during the prestart with about 7 knots out of the South.  The RC selected a shorter course due to the weather and posted SADF for tonight. The fleets were off with most favoring a starboard tack start and a quick tack to port.  The winds lifted the port tack boats right up to the layline for the quick beat up to A mark. Rounding A mark is where things started to get interesting. There was a big weather cell over town that started to kick out some good Easterly winds. Many boats elected to fly only their jib on this leg and power reach all the way to D. Some boats closer to shore with their kites up looked like they were not having fun. We saw lot's of spinnakers being washed in the water tonight. Might be an expensive evening for some. We hoisted the kite around A mark and were able to hold a pretty tight angle on the run down to D. We knew that we would have to douse somewhere down the line and climb a little higher up to the layline, but the 10.5 knot run was just to much fun to hurry it. We managed to get the kite down in a very slow fashion, due to a knotted spin halyard. We rounded D mark with the lead 525 boats and worked our way back up to the finish. A wild and wooly adventure for all.