Tune Up Time

Lots has been going on here in the sailing world already this year and it is shaping up to be a fantastic year for sailing in the Okanagan. Sunday marked the one and only day for boats to shake out the sails, dust off the rule books and get their boats sailing fast. It was a beautiful day for a shake down sail with about 5 to 10 knots from the South/Southwest. Thanks to Henry H for jumping into action and acting as RC when the usual boat couldn't get their engine started. They set up for a couple of practice starts to get the fleet back into the grove. Our only mistake was assuming the multiple horn blasts after the practice start meant another general recall and to prepare for another start. It didn't. The race was underway and we found ourselves the better part of 5 minutes behind the bulk of the fleet. The challenge was set and we now had a lot of catching up to do. We played the West shore going towards A mark and had good pressure quickly reeling in the fleet and rounding about mid fleet. It was decided to try the East shore down to D mark as there appeared to be solid pressure all the way down. We ended up getting a bad lift while running that forced us to sail an ever deepening course and slowed our progress. I can't remember specifics but I think we rounded near the head of the pack and again made for the East shore on up to A mark. Most boats that went West made huge gains and we were passed by a few by the time we got back up to A mark. Blur got the inside overlap on us for the rounding and we again continued East while they went West. The run was pretty much another carbon copy of the first towards D mark. We got to bust out the fancy spinnaker work for the douse at D mark as we successfully pulled off the first Mexican of 2014. We rounded D just behind big bad J and they managed to hold us off on the no tack Beat to finish at C. The marks must have been moved somewhat as the distance between C and D seems very short. Today for us was really about getting used to a new crew dynamic. We are very fortunate to have Alan Barnes and Thor joining us for the regular season this year along with returning rock star Michel Tremblay. Tracy will be trimming the jib and is happy to learn that she gets to sit behind 4 big guys downwind when the spray starts coming over the bow. There is all kinds of high level competition taking place out West this year for the Melges 24 including the Canadian nationals being held in Victoria in June. We hope to be there. Don't forget to put Okanagan Race week on the calendar this summer. See www.okanaganraceweek.ca for more details. I can't believe that even after all these years I still feel like a kid on Christmas morning looking forward to next Sundays sailing. See you there.

M