Well if you weren’t there you missed a great (and challenging) regatta.

Unfortunately, the travelers did not turn out the way they have in recent years. Do not worry they will be here for ACC’s! The good news is that we had a ton of club scots out on the water. It was great to see so many club boats out on the water. This was a great turn up for ACC’s in September as we will be racing in the same area.

Day 1:

After a fairly long wait, we got in one tricky light air (I mean light!!!) race. On our boat we tried to focus on finding the pressure, minimizing maneuvers and staying out of traffic. We have found that the fastest way to go slow in a scot is to get in a clump of them! It was a tricky race for everyone except the Guenther’s who sailed away from the entire fleet to win the race followed by Team Wake and Tom Gallagher from GRSA. With barely a breath of wind and a cloudy sky there was no chance of a sea breeze. Rick wisely pulled the trigger and sent everyone back to the club for the evening’s activities.

Saturday night was a great party with a great band. You really missed out if you weren’t there!

Day 2:

Early Sunday morning was looking grim for better breeze, but the light northerly shifted to the east and built by the time everyone got out to the course.

Race 2: The Wakes and Team Patriot jumped the gun and had to go back. Once we restarted and found a clear lane it was all about getting to the next band of pressure working down the course. It seemed like the pressure was usually coming out of the right, but teams were able to make the center/left work as well. We battled back to 2^nd, with the Guenther’s beating us by a couple of inches at the line. Team Wake also battled back to finish 3^rd.

Race 3: Team Buhl blasted off the pin end of the starting line and sailed on to finish 2^nd with Team Wake able to sail a lower course downwind to pass them on the final run. The chop really seemed to be building and we were working really hard to change gears and power through the chop. We were aggressive trimming and balancing the boat. When in doubt, we would leave the top of the jib open and make sure the boat wasn’t too flat in the light spots. Emphasis was on speed rather than height! At this point in the day, we were very mindful of the right-hand side of the course (sea breeze). However, the left seemed to keep hanging in much to our surprise.

Race 4: The right finally came in hard (both pressure and a shift) on the second beat digging Team Patriot out of the grave. We snuck around the 2nd weather mark ahead of Team Wake and headed back down wind. Team Guenther, who rounded third was able to sail extremely low in a private shaft of pressure and compressed into us. We were able to maintain thin lane of clean air between the Guenther’s to windward and the Wake’s to leeward to win the race.

Race 5: We were able to get a clean start up at the boat and took the first opportunity to head out to the right. We stepped into a nice bit of pressure and a righty. With the course being so short for the final race, the race committee didn’t have a chance to square up the second beat. We were able to hold the Wake’s off up wind and back down the run to win the race.

When it was all said and done Team Guenther beat Team Wake on a tiebreaker. Congrats to both teams for sailing a great regatta!!

Thanks to Rick Klein and his race committee team for doing a great job this weekend. Additional thanks to Matt Lambert and his team of volunteers who put on a great regatta.

Look forward to seeing EVERYONE at ACC’s in September!!