Sarasota Fleet Racing Mayhem

We have been "enjoying" quite a bit of rain lately which is typical for this time of year. The forecast for this weekend was improving so we thought maybe we would give it a go with the Sarasota fleet. It was looking like the perfect day and the weather gods had the storm chance at 20%. In the summer 20% is as low as it gets so we decide to go.

The 7 Scots met up at I mark where we would start the racing, perfect sea breeze, all good. We did the first race and lost the lead to Bob Twinem on the run but we held off Marshall Pardey for second. I recall looking at the cloud bank to the south and thinking it looked a bit odd. It didn't look threatening but the height was impressive and the edges looked really hard but the color was still white. Hmmm...

Race 2 was a good one for us, we did a "Ron" out to the left and rounded with a big lead. Running to the finish the white clouds were getting quite a bit more gray and some occasional rumbling could be heard. Since the weather was coming from the south and we had to go that way to return to the club I pulled out the cell phone for a look at the radar. "Jib up, were are heading in" There is an impressive cell running up the coastline.

We are the only wimps, the rest of the gang does a third race. As we approach the club the south is getting dark, we are pretty sure the others are in for it. We do the fire drill thing at the hoist and scramble to get the mast down before the shit hits the fan. The sky is now pretty black and the rumbling nearly constant. I snapped a couple photos with the cell phone;

Looking out the club dock with breeze on from the south, good that the fetch isn't too long. 

This is taken from the BBQ pavilion looking north where the fleet is. The leading edge of the cell has passed over our heads and is heading north.

One of the newer members of the fleet; Brian and Lisa live in Longboat Key so they high-tailed it back to the canal and arrived before the front. That leaves 5 on the water and we can soon see 4 boats capsized. As it turns out Bob Twinem was the only one who got the sails down in time and did not capsize. He rode out the storm on anchor, a lesson to be remembered. The 4 that capsized all swamped and got a tow back to the club. We also could see one of the boats under tow while still on its side, that was a first. I couldn't figure that out, but assumed the mast was still in tact or the boat would have righted itself or flipped upside down. I was having a bad visual of the mast at this point.

At the ramp waiting for the trailer and the slow drain.

Tow Boat US leaves after making and receiving a deposit from the club dock.

Marshall's boat #400 back at the hoist also doing the slow drain.  Note the small triangular thingy on the port seat.

It turns out this was the boat being towed on its side. When Marshall and Richard were attempting to right the boat they snapped the board off, the triangular piece is the souvenir to remember the day. That explains the strange tow into a spot where they could right the boat, then finish the tow in conventional fashion.

The mast is still staight! I know, WTF!!!!

In fact all the masts were undamaged, another surprise given the length of time the boats were over. All the people were undamaged as well, so it worked out mostly ok.

The proper use and installation of bow bags and transom ports is another story!

NAC 2012 Wrap Up

So we are home and back to the norm (sweating a lot) while doing the usual stuff. We usually do a wrap, final thoughts, or whatever you call it after a regatta. So here goes...

Heat is a relative thing, then there's that old humidity discussion that you have to have when discussing extreme heat or cold. The majority of time we spent in Carlyle was pretty nice with temps in the 90's and pleasant evenings. We were running the RV A/C and I was perplexed about why there was so little or no water running of the roof. Yep, it is that humidity thing. When we run it here in FL there is a heavy drip or slight stream that runs off the roof and down the side wall. So at one point I went online and discovered the humidity was only 30 something percent that day in Carlyle. That would be a new record in Florida. So today it is a typical 93 degrees and I was outside for a few minutes at lunch and I was drenched in sweat. Welcome home and Happy Humidity!

You may recall that we were unable to post pics while on the trip. Wait, let me begin with, we got a new Ipad which is awesome except for the part where I could not figure out how to add pics to this blog. This may be related to some Java script thing, I really don't know. Not even slightly aware of what java does inside a computer, familiar with how it works in a coffee mug but that may not be the same thing. Anyway, since we are able to post pics from home i am dropping a few in this post.

The Carlyle Sailing Ass. sits within the Eldon Hazlet State Park. This park is pretty nice with lots of sites, trees, bugs, cabins, deer, etc. If you are ever in this area and happen to have your RV with you it would be worth a visit. I cannot recommend tent camping for a variety of reasons but many people do it.

Here we have a view of the lake from our campsite, the sites were heavily shaded and perfect for the hot sunny weather we had all week.

Tuesday was the second day of qualifying and only one raced was needed so we had some free time to kill. We hit the Walmart for some supplies and once again could not find any Walmartians. Must be something in the water... Then we went "downtown" to have some lunch at Lubars, which was really good.

A view down Main Street in the town of Carlyle which, according to the sign has a population of 3500.   

Kim, Susie and John Damagala in front of Lubar's where we enjoyed a good lunch Tuesday afternoon.

Train tracks, Silos and silly tourists, what can you do?

Back to sailing for a moment, the club did a good job hosting the event. I will say that it appeared that a relative few volunteers were all doing a lot of volunteering. I guess this would be a good time to urge you all to help pitch in when your club is hosting a regatta. There is nothing like a good number of friendly volunteers to make a regatta a really good time. That's enough about that.

Threw this one in in the event anyone was curious about the scenery in this part of the world.  It all pretty much looks something like this.

We were really glad to make this trip with Missy and Lexi, our two black labs with us. They travel really well and are good for entertainment along the way.

Lexi assuming her position in the Dinette of the RV. Her main hobby is collecting shoes.

Missy is not shown here but if you use your imagination you can picture another black dog that looks a lot like Lexi. Sort of. The main difference between the two is Missy is in almost constant motion, so a pic of her is likely to be blurry.

Ok, more about sailing. We ended up 13 which seems about right to us though we would enjoy winning way more. The problem with winning is you have to be much better than we are and that would take practice, and lots of it. Honestly, I am not all that interested in the practice part so it is what it is.

The other thing is that we are talking about lake sailing. It seems that the best strategy was to pick a side, commit to it and hope like hell you picked the right one. In this way, it reminded me of sailing at Davis island, stay away from the middle and hope.

We were really mediocre on the windward legs but had some steller runs where we passed many boats. I think the racing would be a lot more fun if we could start with the chutes up and drag race to the bottom of the lake. Just sayin.

Arrived home to discover a slightly worn trailer tire. 

Apparently there were a lot of tire issues with the other racers. Not sure why but my bet is that most trailer tires seem to be real crap, lots of chinese manufacturing these days. The bright side is car/truck tires seem much better.

Another theory is that some of the interstates are in such bad shape these small tires get the shit beat out of them. So much for all those "shovel ready jobs" we here about all the time. More like shoveling BS.

Only a small amount of damage was done to the fender, an easy fix. Just in case you are wondering the tire still has 75 psi, so it was NOT operator error!

Another nice thing about towing a Scot with an RV is you can and do completely forget its there. If you look closely at the following picture and check the rear view mirror you will see the view of the boat. See it? That's because you can't. Unlike towing with the van or car you can't hear it either. Talk about denial. I am guessing that we would have no idea if the tire had blown or not. As a responsible driver I do click on the rear camera about every hour to see if it is still back there. It's seems good to narrow down the search area if it should go missing.

We noticed several areas where a tornado had recently cleared a path in the  brush/woods along the interstate in Georgia. Bad pic though... 

What next... Oh Yeah the Lintons ROCK!!! This is the second time they have won the NAC, the first was in 2007 at Fishing Bay. Amy and Jeff celebrated by selling their boat! can you believe that?!! They also were wearing bow number 13 which is just flat wrong!
Anyway they traded the boat on a new one Harry was sailing all week. It is number 59 hundred something or other and is white on white on white on white like Jeff wanted, so they are happy campers. Congrats Again!!!

Passing the Flamingo with John and Susie so I had to get a pic, we did not actually go there but since I shot it out the sunroof of the "Clifford" I felt compelled to add it here.

Thanks to all who followed this blog all week. Out