Wednesday Night Series 2 - 1, July 10, 2024

Results Race ( 2 - 1 )

We're back baby! While I thoroughly enjoyed shouting "USA! USA! USA!" over the holiday break, it didn't quite scratch the same itch as shouting "TRIM! TRIM! TRIM!" at Papa Doug on a Wednesday night. As an all-knowing skipper, I definitely needed to get that out of my system. (Just kidding, try to be nice to your crew and your boat. You'll reap the benefits later)

In all seriousness, this week was an awesome way to kick off series 2! We had a great breeze and a lengthy course to match! I always love a long race, but it was especially enjoyable after the hiatus from racing! Thanks to RC led by Jeff Freeman and Dennis Terrell, with help from Cathy Freeman, Mike Tatteris, Pat Finnik, Tom Telinski, and Ava!

Everyone wants to get off to a good start to the series, and it was apparent this week with very competitive starts! You don't want to set yourself behind the others in your fleet too early in the series. However, sometimes starting fast is not what ensures that. The aggressive starts led to a lot of boats being over early this week. Sometimes the best way to get a good start is to not set yourself behind. Minimize the risk and then you don't have to dig yourself out of a hole.

The Melges series 1 champs, Ex-Kahn find themselves scoring OCS after week 1, setting themselves behind Davis who's now jumped to the early lead (he asked me to shout out that his boat is for sale if you're interested in buying a race winner). However, talking to Mike Harrington after the race, he told me that he was a minute late to the start, but still managed to keep his hot streak alive and put another flyer on the cruiser fleet. 1 minute late to the start definitely sounds a lot better than OCS.

Much of sailing is risk management. Don't set yourself too far behind and you've always got a shot. If you're ahead, use your lead to cover the fleet rather than chasing a puff on the horizon (the Ex-Kahn team is usually very good at this). But, I can't say I haven't enjoyed the thrill of picking the right corner of the course to go all the way to. My advice is keep it clean, but don't forget to have fun ;)

We also need to thank our culinary volunteers led by Will Brown for some phenomenal tacos this week! Please note we still need volunteers to prepare 4 more dinners through series 2. Reach out to WIll Brown or any of the officers if you are interested. All costs for preparing the dinner are reimbursed by the fleet!

For those of you that believed my ruse about the file corruption of Mr. MacLeod's sail plans, never fear! I accidentally attached the final results to the email which were supposed to be a surprise for the awards ceremony and this was my attempted cover story. 

Thanks to Brendon and Linda for capturing the two pics above of the sporty conditions! You can see more pics from them in the Facebook Group. 

As always, let me know if there are any corrections needed. See you all next week!

Thank you,
Kyle
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