The NOODS brought out more J24’s than expected. In addition to the core fleet we had competition from six young upstarts on Another White Boat, terrific sailing from Scott and the gang on Bad Fish and Matt Harper brought out Cry Havoc for some mid-summer punishment. But that’s not all. We had cameo appearances from more friends. Valerie Petit from the Wayzata J24 Fleet in Minnesota and Troy Pospisil the new co-owner of “Breakthough” were crewing on WOOF, and Alex Mouton the owner of “Trouble” came and crewed with Downtown Uproar. We were also thrilled to have Chris come out; he hadn’t sailed with us since Vitamin J left the fold.
Saturday started off nicely with a SSW genoa-breeze and flat water. We had a clean start in the first race. But an early port-starboard encounter involving four boats made for some hair raising close calls. Luther gave us all another lesson in sportsmanship. Not only was he the only boat to do two penalty turns but after the race in the redress meeting he admitted to not hailing protest and thus took himself out of contention there. Thank goodness no boats were bumped, but let’s all be sure to learn from this. When in doubt, do your turns and then talk about it afterwards on the dock over a brewski. We’re all friends after all.
The rest of the race was a close battle and we all got some spinnaker practice. Enough to deal with the much higher wind in the next two races. The third race on Saturday was a real sphincter clencher. Long, very long, upwind legs in very high breeze. Lots of position changes. Lots of windshield wiper seesawing on the downwind runs. I swear we surfed this one wave for what seemed like a full minute. On Belay was the cause of much comedy. During an epic battle on the last upwind leg they slowly reeled in the leaders and managed to get their nose in the lead. They were on the starboard layline for the upwind finish buoy. At the last second they shot up into the wind and got the horn. Ecstatically they started high fiving themselves. But in the meantime the boat slowed down and started to slide into the buoy. Oops. Now they were all entangled. Classic rule 31 violation. Remember, you’re still racing even if your bow has crossed, until you’ve cleared the finish line. They eventually convinced themselves to take a scoring penalty. Thankfully they were able to laugh at themselves too.
More comedy was afforded by Kaitlin at the StFYC docks. After the boat had made the freezing wet battle up to the yacht club and the crew were ready to fish out dry clothes from her car she expertly dropped the keys in the water. Frostbite ensued. Hypothermia threatened. Sorry guys!!.
The NOODS party was excellent. We were sure the 105’s would have fished all the beer and rum as is usually the case. But no there was plenty to go around. And go around it did.
I think we were all happy that we only had two races on Sunday. There was still plenty of breeze and we all struggled with our spinnakers on the waves. In a spectacular crash Downtown Uproar was able to show the world how clean they keep their keel. Nice job guys.
Another interesting phenomenon this weekend was the huge new RIB boat that Travis Lund brought out. It was quickly dubbed “the Black Pearl.” Cap’n Jack was running around following the fleet with his camera mounted amidships. Can’t wait to see the footage. All who are interested in taking their sailing to a higher level, I would highly recommend getting in touch with him. It’s certainly good for TMC Racing who again showed us all how it’s done.
Thanks for a great weekend everyone. Next up is the Lipton Cup. Also, plans are under way for some kind of fun race later in the year. A non-counter of course, the idea is to have a skipper exchange. Boats race with their regular crew, but with a different skipper. How will this work? Do we throw keys in a vase? More will be revealed.
Here’s some footage from On Belay. Lesson, if you plan to gibe make sure you notify your foredeck.
Wipeout SFNoods11