Flying Scot Midwinters 2013, Day 4

Well this is it, the last day. The forecast is for a nearly perfect day, sunny and about 10 knots from the NE. Of course the weather will improve as the regatta wraps up, it seems that has become some sort of Midwinter law. It goes something like this, schedule the regatta and wait for the inevitable cold front to roll through with big breeze. Done.

The starting time was moved to 10:30 to see if we could catch up a little on races. The breeze was there so we banged out the first race in 50 minutes or so. David Ames had a near horizon job with our old boat, probably the most decisive win of the regatta. Continuing the old boat theme Marshall Pardey won the second race as the sea breeze was trying to fill in. There was some delay in getting a third race going as we waited to see what the wind would do. The 2:00 pm limit was looming, the sea breeze just didn't have enough punch to break through and we called it a day. We did get 5 races for the regatta so all was not lost. Paul Abdullah and his crew Alex were solid in all conditions and won the regatta but a nice margin. Very impressive and big congratulations to them!

It is kind of a shame that we could not have had better weather for the out of towners. Sarasota is an awesome sailing venue, hopefully one of these years the weather will be more cooperative.

John and Susie Domagala did a great job running the regatta as did all the volunteers. John awarded the Allen Douglas sportsmanship award to Mark Taylor who helped many of the competitors with boat tuning and set up. Good job Mark!

Larry Taggart reminded everyone to get the third week of March on the calendar for the 2014 Midwinters at Southern Yacht Club in New Orleans.

The results have been posted on FSSA.com for your viewing pleasure.

P.S. by the time awards were being given there was a solid sea breeze from about 260 or 270. Just the way it goes....