The forecast for the last racing of the year was iffy for Saturday and great for Sunday which was an improvement over so many race dates this year. The rain ended by 10 AM on Saturday and it was quite cool at around 40 degrees, but five sailors came out and enjoyed a nice warm-up, sunshine by the second race and great winds of 8-10 knots. Ted english had Sea Scouts helping to crew his boat and had great fun flying the spinnaker in perfect conditions. A second race was run with the sun shining and textbook winds. Kurt Hagen won both non-spinnaker races with Al Butkus coming in 3rd an 2nd and Marshall Orcutt 2nd in the first race but thought there was only one race and went sailing the rest of the day.
Sunday was sunny and warmer and windier. Jim Spear replaced Marshall in the non-spinnaker fleet and everyone had great fun in the conditions. It got stronger as the day went on and several racers changed from genoas to smaller headsails in the second race. For some reason few sailors had very good starts on Saturday but everyone was on the line, if not a bit early on Sunday. In fact, Jim Spear, in the second race, was early enough he tacked on to port at the pin end and tried to cross the fleet. He will admit that was a bad idea. Terry Casady had to steer down 60 degrees to go behind him as he turned down to miss Ted English who had to turn up head to wind with Jim going between the two boats with just a few feet of room on each side in opposite directions! Wow! The racing was almost anticlimactic after that. Jim won the first race and was 2 nd in the last race. Kurt Hagen was 2 nd in the first race and won the last race with Al Butkus 3 rd in both races. Terry Casady won both races with Ted English coming in second.
This wraps up the season. We hope more people will try racing next year as it is great fun, an excuse to use your boat and you will learn more and faster than any other kind of sailing.
By Terry Casady
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