Racing

In 2005, we have participated in seven regattas and eleven series races, and a couple beer can races. The first racing of the season was the Muy Frio Regatta in February, which wasn't actually as cold as all that, but turnout in our fleet was light and we got a 3rd-place trophy basically by beating someone who was chased off the lake by the game warden for not having current registration numbers.

Started off the year of series racing with a DFL in the first race on Opening Day, but did considerably better in the second, with a third-place finish. The rest of the races we did, we finished last among the boats that stayed pointy-side up. We finished 6th among 13 boats in the series, behind five Snipes.

Second regatta, and first circuit stop of the year (the Muy Frio was a practice regatta) was the AYC Centerboard Regatta, held early this year on April 30/May 1. It was quite windy the first day. Fortunately, I had a windsurfer as crew, who was completely unperturbed. I let him trim the main. I was still pretty much terrified at every tack and jibe, and retired from one race because I needed to do two 720s (as a result of fouling a boat during the first jibe on the first one) and I just didn't have the confidence that I could keep the boat pointy-side up. Things improved after that, with just one 720 in the second race and a 360 in the third. Sunday was a bit less breezy, although still pretty lively.

Our first road trip was to Spring Dinghyfest up at Rush Creek. The drive up was on Friday the 13th, which made me more than usually cautious, especially after my brother's Forester, which I had borrowed to tow the boat up with, developed problems that morning on my way to work. My crew, Robin, towed the boat up with her truck after I had made sure all the bearings had non-milky grease in them, which took a couple of hours. We got in late, and were awakened by a thunderstorm during the night which blew our tents over. After a couple hours' sleep in motels, we went out and did five races (with a lunch break). We did not cover ourselves with glory, but at least we only had to do one 720, and we got some pretty good starts. On Sunday, we missed the first race due to Robin getting lost on the way back from the motel (camping does have some advantages) but finished the other two, including reasonably successful use of the spinnaker in one race, downwind finish and all. We wound up 6th out of 10 boats in the fleet, but 3rd among the circuit boats because the MC Scows swept the top three places.

Nobody, including us, showed up for the Leukemia Cup down in Houston, whether because it was Father's Day weekend or out of fear the prizes would include cases of leukemia. That meant the de facto next circuit stop was the TCC Regatta up at Stillhouse Hollow in August. The organizers got a reminder of why so few regattas are scheduled in August, but it was fun anyway, and we got in half a dozen races by going out at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon after a long pause on land. I had new crew for this regatta, Stacy Tucker, who normally crews on the 11-meter, Wasabi. We came in third among the circuit boats, fifth overall (a couple Lasers came up and beat up on us).

In September we were back up at Stillhouse for the HOT Regatta. It wasn't actually all that hot, although it was somewhat wet on Sunday. Wind was variable, from too light to fly the spinnaker to whitecaps all over the lake, and shifty as far as direction was concerned as well. We came in 2nd out of five boats.

The following weekend was Governor's Cup at AYC. I had new crew for this one, Hazel Sanchez, since Stacy was already committed to crewing on another boat. We had decently long courses and managed to avoid any really spectacular Stupid Spinnaker Tricks. There were two Flying Scots we didn't see much after the first leg of each race. We were kind of in the middle of the rest of the pack. We managed a third-place finish by virtue of the fact that we got the course correct in the fifth race and never even noticed that some of the other boats, who were ahead of us at the time, finished early.

The first weekend of the fall series, racing was cancelled for lack of wind, which was OK by me as it was over 100 degrees and my car wouldn't start. Hazel crewed for me the second weekend, still fairly light air but only in the 90s. We had a 3rd in the first race and a 4th in the second, out of five boats. No major spinnaker mishaps, and we even did a jibe set in the second race. We also raced the third and fifth weekends, so we didn't miss any weekends where there was actual racing (it was a remarkably windless fall), although we were incorrectly scored DNC in one race. We wound up in fourth place for the series, behind three Snipes and ahead of the people who missed races.

Our last regatta of the year was Wurstfest. We started out on Saturday with high winds. Heading out to the race area, both the clew reefing line and the line that holds the rudder down came uncleated. I had Stacy blow the main halyard and we both jumped overboard to hold the boat off the rocks, which we were fairly successful in doing. A chase boat gave us a tow and we were able to get the rudder back down and the sail back up, but we sat out the first race. The wind moderated, and we were able to shake out the reef before the second race started. We had back-of-the-pack finishes in both of the races we completed on Saturday, and there was no racing on Sunday due to lack of wind, so we wound up an uninspiring 11th out of 11 boats racing in our fleet (one opted not to go out on Saturday and a couple didn't show up). As far as I know, we preserved our overall second-place position in the circuit.