It's good to be heavy

Sometimes. Today was one of those days. If you read or heard about the Flying Scot Midwinters you probably know that a passing front blew out the last two days of the regatta. It's been about two weeks since then and, of course, the weather has been perfect. We have had the itch to sail so when we heard the SSS gang was going out Sunday, we decided to join them. How could we resist the awesome weather and beautiful sea breeze that has been running 8 to 12 most days? Wait, what's this forecast for a breezy southerly!?

As we are crossing the Sunshine Skyway and looking at solid heavy whitecaps from the south, we consider a U-turn at the south rest area. A moment or two of discussion and we decide to keep going.

We arrive at the club and it is breezy but not crazy. A few boats still want to go out while some decide to bag it. Then we hear that John Domagala was planning to singlehand and he asked if we would team up. That was an easy one, so we get his boat ready and left ours attached to the van, in travel mode. Fred Strammer wisely grabbed a third, so they were good to go. Jim Egan was unfazed knowing Richard is the best hiking crew on the planet. Ron teamed up with Chuck Tanner, another fan of breeze so they were good. Don and Ted tried it out but not having the mass was tough, so they retired.

Here is the wind shot for the day;



This was only the second time I have sailed a Scot heavy, over 500lbs heavy. Kim and I did sail once with another crew about her size so we may have been 410 ish which was nice until the breeze laid down. No lay down today though, the direction stayed steady, and it held up until we got back to the club. Sweet! We had a good time of it and won the day. Nothing like horsepower on the rail.

Much as I love Sarasota Bay, I don't think we will do more trips there during spring break. I was close to homicidal on both the trip down and the return trip home. Traffic was heavy, but worse than that is the number of usually Ontario tagged cars that are 20 below the speed limit and totally oblivious. UGH!!

BTW, Lainie Pardey took a bunch of photos of the Midwinters which are now running on the FSSA homepage.