B3, 2011

I admit it! It's all my fault. I actually had the nerve to think out loud about a possible 3 in a row of perfect Wednesday night conditions. What we had last night was definitely far from perfection. During the prestart we saw very shifty wind conditions with 60 degree swings in 5 seconds very common. The RC tried to give us an upwind start but instead gave us a downwind start with Easterly winds and a course of SDBXCAF. After the usual chaos involved with a downwind start we were off. We started on Starboard near the boat favored end and quickly popped the chute. We managed to wiggle our way ahead of the fleet and rounded the D mark first. This is where it quickly fell apart for us. The fleet split at this rounding with half (including us) sailing near the layline immediately for B mark while the other (smarter) half sailing away from the B mark back towards the KYC to stay in the shore breeze. It quickly became evident who made the right call. Our wind quickly died to zero and left us parked in the middle of the lake for a good hour while the boats on the shoreline cross country route slowly made progress towards B. We were so far behind at this point it was hard to see what was actually going on but it looked like the J29 followed by the Martin 24 rounded B first heading for X. Congratulations to those keen skippers who bravely stuck to rule number 1, always follow the shore, it paid off handsomely.  Shortly after finishing we noticed a very large windline coming down the lake from the bluff. We quickly dropped sails and got slammed by 20 to 30 knot winds. This made for an interesting motor all the way back to Shelter Bay in the near darkness. Ahhh high adventure. See you next week and don't forget the Cannacord cup May long weekend. Preregistration is available on the home page.