C1, 2012

Another beautiful wind filled night for a yacht race.  We had a full crew of 5 on board tonight with Aaron (the beard) helming, Tracy on trim, Belazs in the pit and David on bow.  By the time the starting gun sounded the breeze had filled in to a steady 15 knots right out of the South.  We fought hard for the pin but manage to let Pentameter and J29 wedge in just to windward of us.  Fortunately Pentameter was taking quite a bit of dirt from J and got spit out the back.  We held our own only having to throw in one tack on the first beat to "A" mark and rounded just behind J.  We have done quite a bit of work trying to master the gybe set on the sprit boat and it is finally starting to pay off.  We gybed and did a quick hoist and managed to stay right of the transom of J all the way down to "D" mark.  Not much changed on our beat back to "A" mark but things did get somewhat interesting on the final run back to "C".  We were overtaking J on port tack to windward and they gave us some hard luffs which caused us to broach.  Once we got back on our feet we had to fight for our rights to room to pass starboard tack boats to windward of J but to leward of the upwind starboard tackers.  We had a solid douse at "C" mark and rounded about 1 boat length ahead of J.  We manage to hold them off all the way to the finish line but they did manage to finish inside of 1 boat length behind us, very close indeed.  It was a great night for a sailboat race and I think the fleet is sailing very well indeed.

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B4, 2012

Tonight was the final race for B series already, and marked the first day of summer, as well as the first night warm enough for sailing in shorts and a T shirt.  We had probably the best conditions for sailing so far this year with a steady 5-8 knots out the North and very little variation in wind speed or direction.  The course was originally posted as SDAXAF but was changed in less than a minute to SDABAF.  Unfortunately quite a few boats did not see this change and found themselves sailing the wrong direction after the first A mark rounding.  We arrived at the A mark third behind the usual two boats and sure thought it was a strange tactic for both GR and J to continue up the Eastern shore when the next mark was B just below the Bluff.  We were not quite sure what they were up to as we have seen before many crazy local knowledge tactics pay off.  We had a good short handed race managing to cross the finish line first followed by a three pack of boats including Smart Move, Pentameter, and Animal Manor.  A warm welcome to a new boat "Morning Glory" in fleet 3.  They had a solid race turning in a fast second place just behind Chaos.

B3, 2012

It looks like our lucky streak of big Wednesday night winds is finally broken.  Instead of the 15 to 20 knot winds that we had all grown accustomed to, we were given a SW to NW 2-5 knots.  The course for tonight was SCXCA.  Due to the wind angle everyone set up for a port tack approach to the start line.  We had clear air for the most part and a mid line position.  Ghost Rider and TBD quickly broke out ahead and rounded the C mark first.  Almost everyone threw in a quick jibe set and went for the kite hoist.  We did the same but found there to be not quite enough pressure to fill our 700 square feet of kite therefore could not sail the angle we would have liked.  We did try to stay close to the Eastern shore as much as possible because we have learned from experience that the middle is usually certain death in these conditions.  The Martin 242 had a great race crossing the line 4th just behind us.  Ghost Rider followed by J lead the fleet across for line honors.  Welcome back to the Martin 244 crew, glad to see you back on the water.

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More Fleet Building

Anyone looking for a new sport boat for the Okanagan might want to consider this very rare opportunity.  The sister ship to Ghost Rider just came up for sale on Sailing Anarchy.  She is hull number 6 and they are asking $19,500 usd.  It sure would be cool to see another of these on the lake.

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