First time racin'!

[TIM WEBB]

Well kids, this weekend The Red Witch and I had our first experience with racing. It was fun, but I obviously have a lot more to learn!

Every year around this time, the Lake Monroe Sailing Association puts on The Kettle Cup, a regatta that is a fund raiser for the local Salvation Army. It's a 2 day event. Saturday morning, we had 15 boats registered. There were 5 Catalina 22s, so they had their own fleet. Two other 5-boat fleets were put together with other similar boats. I was the only Daysailer, and I was put with a Sanibel 17, a Precision 18, and 3 other boats of similar type/size.

When we got on the lake around noon, there was very little wind, and we ran two races in that, barely. The course was a simple start/finish line and an upwind mark about a half mile away. Go to the mark, go around, and come back. Easy, right? Not when there's no wind!

Then, suddenly it picked up to 15-20 knots, and things got exciting! That third race was like work!

Yesterday morning, there was zero wind, and dense fog. We waited a while, then the committee decided to go out anyway. We sat there in the fog for 2 hours, then it cleared up, but still hardly any wind. We started a race anyway, and it took two hours to complete a race that should have taken 20 minutes! Needless to say, they called it off after that.

So, anyway, even though the conditions were less than favorable, it was a nice warm December weekend on the water, I learned a few things about racing (I really need to study up on what all those flags mean!), and we raised about $800 for the S.A. Not bad at all!

The guy in the Sanibel took a few pictures of us cooling our heels in the fog - I'll post them to the gallery.

- Tim

[Phill]

Hi Tim.

Welcome to Day Sailer Racing. I hope you keep finding ways to race. Its the best way I know to become skilled faster, and meet some fun folks along the way.

Where did you find a "nice warm December weekend on the water" ????


phill

[TIM WEBB]

Phill,

Lake Monroe is in Sanford, northeast of Orlando, FL.

Unfotunately, it was the warm and humid conditions that caused it to stay so foggy for so long on Sunday!

- Tim