Wow! So many new boats showed up for the season
opener that we're really not sure that 17 overall is an
accurate count. Hard to say which is the nicest, but Larry
Adams' translucent key-lime green #469 made it the easiest
to avoid. Alas, we can't say that for everyone because the
carnage began even before the first gun with Danny North,
sailing Jean Malthaner's spare #1026, doing a head-on with
another boat, which cost Danny his backstay for a few races
and the other boat's headstay for the day. Larry Boline's
#1289 and Tracy Downing's #1298 may be the likeliest sail
numbers to confuse, but Tracy's fire-engine red hull contrasts
so starkly with Larry's Buck Roger's silver boat that, in
the occasional three-card monte that is model yacht racing,
they're probably the least likely to end up trying to drive
the other's boat.
Of course, no one would have anticipated the
first series' actual attrition rate from the depressingly
soft pre-race conditions. The anxiously anticipated start
of the match racing challenge ladder, set for the hour before
the regatta, took a back seat to drifting from the north
end of the junior-dock basin to the middle and back again
as slowly as one possibly could. This, however, was the
dfc before the perfect sailing conditions that showed up.
The sea-breeze filled in just before the 1300 first gun,
and, notwithstanding the occasional NASCAR-like rub, 14
boats started the first race in a sweet 10-knot puff that
produced nowhere near the noise one would expect from a
largely fledgling fleet.
The racing itself was superb. With skies so blue
and a sun so warm you really had to ask yourself if it was
January even if you were born here, an exceedingly well-behaved
crowd of evenly-matched International America's Cup Class-based
model yachts fought for the same things the big boats fight
for: a good start, a clear lane, tactical control, and bragging
rights. Hotlly-contested starts led to crowded upwind mark
roundings, and heart-thumping close-quarters racing gave
way to the now-familiar platelet-in-your-blocked-artery
look as boats peeled off one another to go their separate
ways. (See, e.g., Dr. D. Ryan, M.D., Flt. Cpn., if this
worries you.).
Boats crossed closely all day long, and the
shifting conditions favored only the ability to keep the
boat moving. The change to downwind gates, which gave drivers
the opportunity to separate off the runs and exploit different
upwind options, made for multi-boat lead changes even in
the short span between the leeward mark and the mid-course
finish line. Several finishes in each race were literally
too close to call, and the delta was, more-often, measured
in appreciation for accelerating the CR-914 than in milliseconds.
Although experience paid off in most races, five
different skippers, including Peter Van Horne (#582), who
joined the fleet just last season, won races, and since
no one was immune from the occasional sea-weed induced deep
finish, this series lead is just another first day at Augusta.
Perhaps the series' second regatta, on February 19, will
sort things out. But with the caliber of sailors and boat
set-up, to which Jennifer Luther (#1170) ascribed her final
race 3rd-place finish, being paramount, ain't nothin' carved
in stone, and it's more than likely that everyone in the
fleet will have a say in how the Winter Series, with 18
races to go, will finally turn out.
Lastly, we'd like to remind the members that
the final results are sorted out in the club bar after every
regatta, and not only are you welcome to join in the camaraderie,
but it's the only opportunity you'll have to criticize the
mathematical gymnastics that go into scoring amateur radio-controlled
boat racing, which, not coincidentally, decides the fleet's
coveted year-end high-point trophy. There is a rumor the
perpetual trophy will consist of a CR-914 half-model, but
the prospect of asking Jean Malthaner to get the stinkin'
thing to sail and creating a mini-boat half-model model
fleet being too depressing to contemplate, only time will
tell.
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