M Squared

The now famous Memorial Day Regatta , first held in 1945 with some 23 boats participating, is now limited to 150 boats with competitors from all over the West Coast. It's fun to be part of such a great regatta at home. There were 21 Santana 20's on the line for a total of six races. The weather was quite nice... on Saturday and weird on Sunday. It was cloudy, cool, and the wind was all over the place making for very unpredictable racing. Even so... we improved our position from second place after day 1 to a one point lead for first going into the last race... Well that was our worst race in terms of our finish. It was also the most frustrating in terms of wind. With that result tossed out, we ended the regatta in second place behind a very strong boat (two former class champions). There's a pretty good story on the S20 class website . Another (less flattering) story made it into the Sunday edition of our local paper. It was funny listening to people (serious racers... ) co

Photo credit: Sean Trew. Pacific Fog In summarizing our SOCKS Regatta experience , I mentioned " BIG air on Saturday with lots of destruction , many DNC/DNS/DNF and our own spectacular wipe out..." Someone noticed the carnage from their house and started a thread on Sailing Anarchy . There were at least two Holder 20s that got swamped in the same downwind run we were on when we wiped out. We had just rounded the windward mark and our skipper noticed a couple Holders in front of us flying their kites. He basically said, "If Chris can do it, the we can too!" The two Holder skippers used to own Santana 20s and we've raced them before. So we did our set and got things cleaned up and started making gains on the (three) boats in front of us. I don't think any other S20s put up a kite. Well I think we all got hit by a big puff or some of those tanker waves... (or both). At any rate, things went from the ride of the weekend to a flaming broach in no time. I starte

This years SOCKS Regatta was pretty cool for several reasons: First time sailing a Seattle Yacht Club sponsored regatta First time racing on Puget Sound at CYC Periodic views of the Olympics Massive tanker waves... Seeing a Mini Transat Zero in Seattle Eight keel boat fleets, six centerboard fleets and a whole lot of experienced sailors Nine races in two days BIG air on Saturday with lots of destruction , many DNC/DNS/DNF and our own spectacular wipe out... EYC S20's with a strong showing Winning the regatta and S20 District 6 Championship by one point

Maybe was because there's a regatta ( S.O.C.K.S. ) coming up in a few weeks... Maybe it was because we upgraded from our number 3 genoa to number 2. Maybe it was because the wind speed was more to our liking... (although it went light toward the end of the race). Whatever the reason, communication on the boat was (IMO) excellent! Good enough to win race 4 of the Spring Series. There are three of us on a Santana 20 : helm (skipper), middle and foredeck (that's me). On our boat, we clearly have a skipper but we also make decisions together. I think it started in the pre-race setup, carried through right to the start and ultimately the finish horn. The other two have been sailing together for over 30 years. I joined them about 9 years ago. We have our roles pretty well figured out as you might imagine. Much of the time there's just a collective flow of information. Questions come up periodically and someone responds to but generally we each provide information based on our

Sailing is a mystery to many people. They're not sure what makes the boat go (it's the wind right...?) nor what makes it stop. I found this video on Eli Boat . Apparently, even some sailors don't know what makes em go or stop... Ouch! Fortunately, I haven't even witnessed something like that. As for those who don't know what makes a sailboat go, I heard a good story from my skipper. He was out sailing his Santana 20 and came across a powerboat that was dead on the water . They apparently had engine trouble and Gordon offered to give them a tow. After they got over the shock of his offer, they accepted... not exactly sure how this was going to work. Well Gordon circled around them (because you really can't stop a sailboat) and indicated he was going to toss them a line (um, a rope) they should tie off on their bow (ah, that's the front...). These guys apparently thought they were going to pull a fast one on Gordon (who noticed they looked at each other and

This story has been dubbed "Protest Shoe" : I've accepted a Group Writing Project assignment from Tillerman . Yes... a dingy sailor... Not holding that against him, he's got a reasonable idea to have some fun, build community and learn something in the process. You see the whole idea of blogging (or any online collaboration) is to get readers contributing rather than just consuming. He's asked that we "blog about the worst mistake or most embarrassing moment [we] had while sailing" and let him know about it. He'll post links to the results of our labor and Proper Course becomes the hub of sailing disasters... I don't know if this ranks as my most embarrassing sailing moment... I try to block them out as quickly as the come. This is, however, one moment... one embarrassing moment... that I remember (at least partially) and one that has a lesson. It's been several years now but I used to wear these red "salt washed" Sperry Stripers

THE WIND-GNOME from Jonas Lie's "Weird Tales From Northern Seas" Maybe you've heard that it never rains on a golf course ... Sometimes I think the same applies to sailing in that it never rains on the lake but we all know better! Last night was Women Skipper night, race 1. It's done once per month and over the course of the season constitutes a series. For the past three years, Don and I have traded our skipper for a women and won the Women Skipper series. With the rain coming down in buckets at times, it seemed likely our first night with a new skipper would be interesting. As it turned out, not a drop of rain fell on us the entire night. That's not to say that rain wasn't falling... It's just that it was falling all around us! With the wind coming out of the SW (where we typically get rain ), the RC set up for a 6C which is a windward, leeward (once around) with a center finish on our Olympic circle. Our pre-race approach was conservative. We ch