Ground Hog race repeat Feb. 3, 2008

Five skippers arrived for the meeting at 10 am. Unlike last Sunday, there was a good 10 knot breeze from the north and Irie, the first boat in the reverse handicap was scheduled to start at 10:37. On the downwind run to Batt Rock the last boat to start, Final Dash, overtook the rest and headed back to Wellbury spar 200 yards ahead of Imp, the nearest competition. Final Dash extended her lead as the next three converged at Wellbury spar. It was a close run back to the Sisters, with some strong gusts pushing the boats well over on their rails. Imp, Electra and Soul Dancer traded places a few times on the final beat down the harbour and the final order (and placing) was Final Dash, Imp, Electra, Soul Dancer and Irie. The overall spread was less than 8 minutes and Irie, on her first club event, was close despite a delay at the start, a fixed prop and a big house over the cockpit, all of which Tony and Dave expect to correct before the next race.

Round Prevost February 24 2008

Enclosed are the results of the Round Prevost race run last Sunday. Thanks to Craig Leitch for basics in the following report:-  

Amazingly, another gorgeous day on the water for the Round Prevost, with 5 boats ( Arbitrage, Baron Rouge, Deryn Mor, Fandango, Imp) off the line in a light but fairly steady northerly breeze, some with chutes up from the start.  Imp skippered in the absence of Greg Slakov by Craig Leitch with his daughter Megan as crew led from start to finish. Megan on the helm had Imp off the line at 10:30 with a great start, and after 2 jibes in the inner harbour, and a new northeasterly breeze after the Sisters, managed to clear Batt Rock and (just barely!) hold the chute all the way to Point Liddell light. 

Boats slowed down around the backside of Prevost where it turned to a slow beat in light, often fluky air, and against a strong ebb tide that slowed progress to a crawl, in places in the 0.x range GPS speed.  Near the rocks along the east side of Prevost the wind finally filled in, giving a good beat to Pelly Point and a good reach to the Second Sister, then the usual hole (!!) where the systemic breeze died and it turned to diurnal inflow, so that the chutes had to go up again for the run to the line, with Imp arriving shortly before 3 pm well ahead of Fandango, the only other boat to finish. Baron Von Rouge and Deryn Mor called it quits when the wind died on them or as Kevin Vine put it "when it became clear I was in a hole in the Universe".  Arbitrage has not been heard from since, she must be still out there somewhere maybe trying to get an early start on the next race or maybe Norbert found some good trading opportunities in Kevin's hole to another Universe.

Congratulations to Craig and Megan for their victory and bragging rights when Greg gets back!

Pete McGovern. Fleet Captain Racing

Final Results Series A 2008