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McMillan
Trophy Race
The local
racing fleet was delighted with the 2-5 knot wind for the start
of the McMillan Trophy race. The wind was moving directly along
the start line, resulting in a beam reach for the first leg of
the race. The gun sounded and the boats were off. Unfortunately
there was a little misshap between Tony McEwen's Saorsa and Stuart
Farson's JJ Flash. JJ Flash was the down wind boat and had the
right of way, however Saorsa skippered by a "retired lawyer"
was reluctant to round up and make room. In the end, Saorsa was
over early, and had to circle around and start over.
The fleet
made a fast run out of the harbor with a few boats raising their
spinnakers to the amusement of the rest of the fleet. See it on
Video at youtube (type in escapetosaltspring at youtube.com).
Some skippers are just brave or gluttons for punishment. It's
just easier to fly a spinnaker when the wind is behind the boat
not when the wind is gusting and swirling from side to side as
it was on Sunday.
The course
for the race was was a reach out to Batt Rock, then through Captain's
Passage and around Ben Mohr Rock and then the usual jaunt home.
Although the first three quarters of the race was quiet and uneventful,
Salt Spring can have these strange winds that sometimes just come
out of nowhere and our peaceful little race was rocked by just
such a wind as we returned to Ganges Harbour. Maybe the Crofton
mill had a big tire fire (just joking). I don't know where it
came from but wow it sure blew hard. It was time to put the coffee
away, cinch down the life jackets and turn off that ____DVD player.
I was expecting to see my chicken coop fly off the island and
pass us. It was that windy.
We did have
two friends out on the boat from Calgary who had never sailed
before. I didn't want their first sailing experience to end up
with a broach that sent them into the harbour. A broach is when
you have too much sail up and the boat goes out of control and
slams over and everyone on board turns blue or goes swimming.
So to avoid the above mentioned fun we elected to drop our head
sail and sail in with just the reefed main sail (shortened to
avoid the above mentioned). As we did this we watched the rest
of the fleet get hammered. It is really amazing to watch some
of these big sailboats like Drew Thorburn's new Questo get thrown
around like corks. Apparently the wind speed reached up to 30
knots.
For some reason,
I'm not sure why we (the racing group of the SSISailing Club)
seem to be short on crew. Believe it or not this is fun and you
can come out and participate. If you dare...it can be a little...hum...what
could I say...exciting.
If you would
like more race info email Scott or Greg at ssiscracers@yahoo.com
by Scott Simmons
Also, a video
of the race can be found here.
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