[SCOW] Wed Night Racing Wrap-Up

 

Racing Wrap-up for 4/25/12

 

Hello,

 

Well we had 16 participants out to race last light, 4 in each Flying Scot. That was a very good turnout. Thanks for all who participated and my apologies to the one participant (Olivia) who I told to 'flag us down' if she got there late, and yes, there she was obediently flagging us down on the seawall, just as I had asked her to do, and I was so preoccupied with trying to set up the races that I completely forgot her, and thought to myself, I wonder who this person is jumping up and down and flagging us. Many apologies for that, Olivia. I am not as organized as I thought.

 

 It was a frustrating night, in that there was both an SCA (small craft advisory) and the winds were just about 0 to 3 kts!. Talk about lousy luck. But hey, I saw all 4 boats with PERFECTLY reefed sails, so that was a good practice for us all, and a huge improvement over last year where I would sometimes see sails reefed 'not-so-well'  J  . The course was initially set up with the #16 red daymarker as the upwind marker, and it turned out that the wind was completely dead in that area (as it was by the trees) so that race was cancelled and a new race was started with the marker #13 as the upwind mark.  That race began ok, but then we found that the downwind round ball marker that was put out, I put out in too shallow of water (which Marty warned me about but which I ignored), and at the same time the wind again died, so this time it was time to throw in the towel, collect the marks and head home. We had many newly joined club members out to race and that was excellent. To all of you who came out last night, please return next week. Racing really is fun once there's wind. On a sidenote our Skipper Director Jonathan Thron then brought some racers out on Rebecca for ice cream, and nothing takes the sting out of a bad night of racing more than ice cream.

 

One funny moment yesterday was when my Team Ms Elli was paying so much attention to the spinnaker trim, that we did not realize we were aground, and suddenly we looked up and watched  Team Sunset Song, skippered by Marty Branham,  who previously was way (and I do mean way) behind us,  and who was not even using a spinnaker, quietly pass us right by. So we'll give that race to you, Sunny, even though it could not be finished.

 

Please return next week when our Race Director Deepak will be back from his trip. I will be happy when Deepak returns as I found it is not as easy as I thought to try to run this racing.

 

PS thanks to Commodore Chris for suggesting the purchase of hand held radios for the Scots, as they are invaluable when communicating during the races.

 

Also thanks to our new member Maryann, who I was lucky to have crew for me, as she has lots of Lightning experience and taught us many useful tips with the spinnaker that I did not know. Maryann, maybe we can get you to crew on various boats this summer and teach us all how to do spinnaker? That would be much appreciated. Thanks also to my crew members  Joe and Ed, who very patiently worked the radio and did the whistle starts and helped with the spinnaker. 

 

 

Jim