10/29/2013
The last Tuesday night of the year did not dissappoint. The wind was from the northwest, sky was clear and the whales seemed to be all over the place. The fall chill is definitely in the air. We decided on a short course: start to mile and back to start. The short course was necessary, little day light left and we had a barbecue to get to.
There were four boats out for the last night this year, Pair a Dice, Pacific Spirit, Free Spirit and Tres Santos. On Pair a Dice, for the start, we were windward of Pacific Spirit in a position they could have luffed us up over the line early. We were seriously stalling coming up on the mark too soon. Rather than luffing us up, Pacific Spirit tacked off and went off on port as we started on Starboard tack. We really felt we had the better of them since we were sailing more toward the mark and they were sailing away from it. The last laugh was on us, since as they sailed off on port tack they had completely clear wind. As we continued to beat our way toward Mile, we were a quarter mile or so east of the mark. When Pacific Spirit tacked out toward the mark, we watched as they ranged ahead on us. They definitely had better speed than we did. When we tacked over to round Mile, Pacific Spirit was well ahead of us. Once we rounded mile, we extended our pole and started closing the gap on Pacific Spirit. If we had a five mile leg, we may have been able to overtake them, but Pacific Spirit rounded well ahead of us. Pacific Spirit won the last race of the season handily. Way to show us how it is done! Congratulations to Pacific SPirit and crew.
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We had a great barbecue at the yacht club with some great discussion on how to keep the ball rolling through this winter and next summer. Suffice it to say, there will be Catalinas out this winter. We will sail, weather permitting, on Saturdays, with a switch to Sunday if the weather is better on that day. Since it is once a week sailing, I usually like to make the most of it and get out around noon or so and Pacific Spirit likes to come out around 2 oclock. We try to set up courses using fixed marks like Mile, SC7 and GOV. If you have never sailed during the winter in Santa Cruz, you are really missing the best of it. Rather than damp fog, we have plenty of sun and 10-15 knots of wind. Personally, I like winter sailing as much as I like summer sailing. If you are interested in crewing on one of the boats during the winter, either comment on this blog, or drop me an e-mail at LLL3@prodigy. net. GIve me your cell phone and your name and we will get you in the crew list for winter sailing.
Thank you to everyone that participated this year. It has truely been a pleasure sailing with and against all of you.
Barry L Keeler
Sailing Pair a Dice
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