Midwinters wrap up

Friday, last day of racing...honestly, we were looking at the Sarasota weather and sign up list for the Sarasota One Design Midwinters. We thought that if we left early enough, we could make it back for the 2 day regatta. You may recall that we did not race together on Wednesday, so, for those 3 races, our scores were total+1. Since the weather here seemed nice, still light wind, we decided to stay, mostly because we were here and we were ready to go!

There was one point separating the leaders, Paul Abdullah and Zeke Horowitz going into today, and we were very interested to see how that played out. Benz had a commanding lead, and won the race, Zeke and Paul were 3rd and 4th, and now tied going into the last race.

Long postponements prior to each race, the wind turned and remained unsettled for quite some time before the RC could set a course for the last race. Once they were able to start the sequence, we ended up all over the line and helped create a general recall. More shifting around of the marks, and they finally started us. The wind went right, but Zeke, Wake and a few others went left. We still can't believe how far left and somehow Zeke made it work leaving the rest of the competitors and banging the left corner. That took guts. It was also the first upwind. There was some terrific sailing the rest of the race, too. Eric and Donnie ended up winning that race by a significant margin, and Zeke came in 2nd and won the regatta. Huge congrats to Zeke and Jay!!!

Back on shore, lots of packing and fixing prior to travel, and the YC had a lovely cookout set up for the awards. Of course, without sailing all the races, we weren't in the running for any award for placing in the top 10, but a few folks must have thought it was nice of us to sacrifice the regatta to keep Ryan in the hunt. So the votes for the Allen M. Douglas Memorial Sportsmanship award was warded to Kim! We were very surprised and overwhelmed because of the special meaning and history behind this award. On the way home, we called Mr. Douglas's son Mike to tell him the good news. It's very nice that we have had the opportunity to sail with and become friends with Mike Douglas through Flying Scots. Hope he is able to sail with us again soon. Due to our late start, we enjoyed staying with John D. again on the way home, bushwhackers make a lovely dinner...