Spring Fringe 1

Today marked the start of another fantastic sailing season here in the Okanagan. It was great to see all the boats back out on the water after a long winters rest. We sure are fortunate to live where we do because after extensive coast to coast travel recently I don't know if there are any other fresh water lakes that are good for much more than ice skating yet this spring. We had fresh 15 knot winds during the preset and we took the opportunity to hoist the kite and do a little planing around C mark and ran the crew through the prestart drill. It was a Northerly breeze but with the forecast calling for a Southerly later in the day I feared we would be sailing during the transition zone at some time today. The course was CTAPA. The big challenge was going to be trying to set a square start line. The usual RC boat was still broken so another sail boat filled in as a committee boat, the problem being that it was dragging the mark it was tied onto down to the South very quickly. They started the motor and once again tried to square up the line but by the time the gun went off there was about a 45 degree angle that made it very difficult to start on starboard. Most boats had to flip back onto port to cross the line and headed for the East shore. We had good success playing a little more middle of the lake as we beat towards Traders Cove. We rounded first and threw in a quick hoist gybe, as there was not much room due to the log boom just South of the mark. It was a great angle for us for the run down to A mark and we did our best to concentrate on maintaining boat speed at all times. We had to keep in mind the tendency of the wind to back as we made our way to A mark and sailed a fairly hot angle into our rounding. Heading back up to Pumphouse it was obvious the East shore was the way to go. We short tacked our way the whole way up, walking the fine line between shore breeze and getting stuck in the mud. We rounded PH thinking that they might call the race due to quickly fading breeze but with the lack of any notification of a shorter course we pressed on. We again short gybed our way along the Eastern shore and kept the boat moving well despite the slight pressure. Again approaching A mark we had worked up a bit in hight and were well placed for that backing breeze and close reached with the kite up to finish at A mark. Major thumbs up should go to Blur who not only managed to pass the unstoppable J29 but also finished just ahead of the crazy cowboys from down South on Bad Dog. Our crew continues to make major step forward with every outing and I can't wait to see what next week brings.