Patience rewarded!

Depending upon which conflicting forecast one used, Sunday would be frequent drizzle with light variable wind from the east followed by a high % of afternoon thunderstorms. Hardly promising!

Nonetheless, five Y-Knot sailors gave it a shot and were ultimately rewarded for their patience.

Hard-working Y-Knot volunteers had five Martins neatly rigged and waiting for action.

Race committee and mark boats were prepped and ready. A nice brunch and lunch was provided by Chingachgook’s kitchen. Everything was in place for a good event — except the weather.

However, around 11am a very slight southerly appeared on the lake and four Martins headed out, waiting for one more. Unfortunately, the breeze began to wane as the first race was started. It went from a “light wind to a total drifter. Dave Whelan and Bob Kraemer persisted and managed to cross the finish line in that order; the other three were given a time limit expired score of 3.

Despite the glassy conditions, with a little encouragement from the RC the remaining fleet voted to wait and see if any wind reappeared even though absolutely nothing from the forecast suggested it.

But sure enough, within 15 minutes some fingers of a light southerly appeared and the second race countdown began.

After a disastrous first (drifter) race last, Shay “right side” Evans got rolling and could barely be stopped, netting 7 points total for first place, narrowly edging past Bob Kraemer by one point.

Usually “banging the corner” is a high-risk choice which doesn’t pay off in a regatta. However, Shay proved this old adage wrong today as the wind slowly built to around six knots and he went right in the last three races.

He may have heard the comment from the RC that the wind appeared a little stronger on the west side of the lake but in any case, he acted on it with more enthusiasm than anyone else in the fleet and it paid him handsomely.

By the third and fourth races, in the building wind the revised windward-leeward course was working very well, with the windward mark straight upwind and each race including starting sequence running about 20 minutes.

The racing was getting so close that at the finish line all competitors were within 30 seconds of each other!

Gold Fleet Results

Many thanks to YMCA Camp Chingachgook for the lovely facilities, food and staff: Mike, Erin, Izzy, Kevin, Ethan, Erik & Azul.

Many thanks as always to the stalwart Y-Knot volunteers who made this regatta possible:

Anthony, Bill, Dan, Don, Evan, Frank, Jeff, John & Kim.