M Squared

The following summary was posted on the S20 Class site by Mark Forrest : The 2008 EYC Memorial Day Regatta was won by class veteran Chris Winnard, sailing with his team of Lance and Patrica Purdy on the infamous “Disaster Area.” Saturday’s races could not have been more different. The first race started in very light air from the east with occasional ribbons of velocity filling in a different locations and keeping the teams guessing as to who was in the best position. Dark clouds and a new strong breeze caught up with the fleet as they made their way up the final beat. The new breeze built into the upper teens with some strong gusts for the second race and the reach back to the club. There were a few lightning sightings over the ridge, but fortunately, it never made it to the lake. The traditional gathering around the Fleet 19 keg preceded dinner, and followed dinner as well, with the party continuing well into the night. Teams were up early and ready to go for the optimistically...

There's been a lot of learning going on lately which encourages me to think about some of the things we learned from the Seattle NOOD . Old sails are slow sails . Gordon and Don decided to bring the "Thursday night" sails. It forced us to pay more attention to the starts, our decisions and execution of maneuvers. 6 Meters are gorgeous old boats (wood beats that fiberglass stuff) Watching the 6 Meters crew work reminds me of whack-a-mole (e.g. From the Lipton Cup 2002 with "Olin Stephens at the helm of Sprig", now you see em ... now you don't ). Seattle traffic is horrible: narrow streets, hills, water, bridges, signals without intelligence and lots and lots of drivers like us who are just visiting The Santana 20 class racing was very competitive (six different boats won races). Congratulations to Inferno (S20 class and overall regatta champ.), Hostile Takeover and Loose Nuts. The bigger to boat the bigger the wind shadow... the more you should avoid ...

... and so do we along with 218 ( at last count ) other entries. Similar to SOCKS , there will be lots of variety across 24 classes ( 29er , 505 , 6 Meter , ACat , Beneteau First 36.7 , C&C 115 , F-18 , J-29 , J105 , J109 , J24 , Laser , Melges 24 , Mini 12s , Moore 24 , OD35 , Performance 30, Rocket 22 , San Juan 21 , Santana 20 , Tasar , Thistle , Thunderbird and Ultimate 20 ). On average (9 boats per fleet), the boats in each fleet should get to know each other ... Should be a lot of fun. Our first NOOD. Last year at SOCKS , we sailed 9 races over two days in heavy wind. This year there will be three days of racing. Should be just the thing to get us focused on Santanarama '08 .

Well we've been sailing around here for three weeks. The early part of the season is always interesting in many ways. First (and probably foremost) is the excitement of actually sailing again (verses reading, writing or talking about it...) This excitement motivates many people to take advantage of the earliest opportunities for sailing. Others however, take longer (several weeks) to get their boats race ready and in the water... or adjust their schedules... or find crew... etc. before they make it out on Thursday nights. I don't understand these people... Another interesting aspect to the early spring is people griping about the lake level. Fern Ridge is an ACE project. The lake level (or elevation) is subject to the corp's Rule Curve . The whining began in February as the ACE dumped water out of the lake during a period of rain accumulation. The resulting lake level dropped below the ideal lake level (in red) or rule curve. The following days and weeks were relative...