Early July racing had two distinct feelings, hold onto your hat and frustration. I had Mike Bono and Andrea Johnson as crew for the morning races. I found out that Andrea decided to buy her own Cal22 and therefore this was going to be the last day she crewed for me. The morning Lightning races had wind that was out of the west with wild puffs and oscillations, mostly out of the west and southwest and building as the day went on. On the water it took a while for the wind settle enough to have a start. It actually started off light, but I could tell that there was something coming from the left (south) side, so I started at the pin. The other boats were by the committee boat. I was the only one to start on time and started on port. I caught the breeze coming from the south and was gone. I did not think we could hold the chute up with the odd shifts so we just went to the leeward mark with the main and jib only. Leon was the only other boat near us, he put up the chute and was definitely faster than us, but not fast enough to catch us. He had issues on rounding the leeward mark, so we then had a very nice cushion. The wind was now mostly out of the west -southwest. Upon rounding the windward mark, I asked Mike and Andrea if they wanted to try the chute. They did and we put it up but I could tell that Andrea had a hard time with it. The wind was really shifty and puffy. There were times we had all three crew on the windward side. We survived and went onto win the race easily.
We did not have MC races in the afternoon. Instead there were 8 MCs and 7 others that sailed in the Brent Gillette Memorial Solstice race. This was a handicap race open to everyone in a sailboat at KYC. Brent wanted to start an annual race close to the summer solstice. Unfortunately Brent was unable to see his dream come to fruition as he died in early March at the age of 59. He had grown up sailing at KYC and for the last few years he had an MC. He also had sailed Lightnings and owned one for a period of time until the fleet went on hiatus at KYC. Brent was such a competitor and an all around great guy. I really miss seeing him at KYC and getting to talk sailing and racing against him. During lunch the wind finally went out of the Northwest as forecast and we could tell that it was windy. This is normally a good direction, but as we were starting right by the club, it made it very puffy as the breeze would make its way down the hills. The course was around 7+ miles, with marks far up the west branch, near the bluff, on the east shore opposite the yacht club and then on the east shore farther south around 2 miles south of the club. At the gun I got put into irons by an odd conflagration of another boat and wind direction and poor boat handling. It took me over a minute to get back to the line and tack. I saw Chris Hawk had tipped over right after the start. I assume he got hit by a phantom puff, or one you can't see coming. With the wind direction, it was a one tack beat to the first mark. Once we got away from the shore, you could tell it was heavy heavy heavy. I was thinking it was blowing around 20kn. I saw another MC tip over on the way to mark 1. I had the boat max depowered for high wind, minus the cunningham. It was so windy that any time we got a puff out of the west, the MCs would just take off on a plane. UPWIND!! It was insane. Five of the MCs rounded the first mark in front of everyone except Dave Tierson in a Hobie 16, who was so far in front we almost could not see him. Once around the mark, we all were planning down to the bluff. Around the bluff the wind really picked up. I heard later that the average puff was 26kn, which means some of them were around 30, which is about what I thought at the time. The mast was really bent over. Chris Hawk bailed out halfway through. It was a heck of a ride down to the mark and it was basically survival. I only had Brent Penwarden and Steve Bender left in front of me. I had to gybe twice to get to the second mark. It was not easy and kinda scary. From the second mark to the third it was upwind until we got past Marlena point. Halfway to Marlena I realized why I could not pull on the cunningham and had to go into the wind so I could actually hook it up. From Marlena to the third mark it was a fun tight reach. Right near the third mark, the wind went light. I was able to use a puff to catch up to Steve and Brent. Steve was able to stay in the puffs and extended from me and Brent and I was able to pass Brent due to being slightly more west then him on the way to the finish. I was 1 minute behind Steve and Brent finished 40 seconds behind me. The first 6 boats to finish were also the first six boats on corrected time, so I finished in third. We had a very nice awards ceremony with food and a bit of a celebration of Brent and his life around KYC. Both Brent's son and his wife Robin were there. Many tears were shed.
For the Fourth of July I had Mike on the Lightning and my girlfriend, Tab, as the third. Tab had only been on the boat once before. I did not yet feel comfortable to have Tab do much beyond help balancing the boat. Mike once again was on the jib. The wind was 8-10 out of the south. We had a great start and was with the group around the windward mark. We were slow to get the spinnaker up and lost Dave Chervanic on the run. I ran the spinnaker and drove, which was not easy. We did everything we could to catch up, but we were unable. On the next downwind leg, I had what I would call the worst gybe ever. I did not rotate the spinnaker well and upon the gybe the spinnaker wrapped totally around the forestay. It took until a mile north of the leeward mark until we had the spinnaker unwrapped. By the time I got back to the start/finish line, the other two boats had started the second race. As I did not properly go around the course, I did not finish and instead just started the race so the other two could have a countable race as we need to have three starters for a race to count. Though we did not race succesfully, we all had a good time and Tab enjoyed herself enough to say she would go out racing again.
For the afternoon races, the wind shifted to out of the west. We had 10 boats out for the races, the most that we have had all year, The first race was to be only 1 lap. I had an ok start the first race and was 4th around the whole race. Everyone was all close throughout. Chris Hawk and William Hudson had a great race battling for the win, Chris got William in the end. Bob Cole was third and I could not get around him, the fifth place was never a threat. In the second race I had a bad start. Luckily it was twice around to give me time to recover. The bottom 5 boats got hit with a a lull right by the windward mark and the other 5 boats just walked away from us. I was at the back of the pack but by the leeward mark I had passed 4 boats to be the top of the bottom group. I was able to move up one spot when Spence Jenkins tipped over near the windward mark. Watching from the back I saw Chris Hawk just walk away from the top of the pack by sailing all the lifts. I did the same, but all I was able to do was catch up to the front group, but I was not able to pass any of them. The last race I tried a port tack start at the pin. Unfortunately I did not quite have the speed to pass in front of starboard boats and had to tack. I went far left, Brent went far right and led around the windward mark. I was mid pack. I had noticed that my bottom batten was out of its pocket right before the windward mark. Going downwind I was right next to Joe Meade and noticed that the batton had gone even farther out so I decided that I wanted to get the batton. I thought about tipping over and swimming to it, but instead I pulled the sail in and headed into the wind. I jumped up and was able to grab the batton. It was as if I had to perform penalty circles. I only had Spencer behind me and Joe was now over 100 yards in front. Thanks to the two laps I was able to work my way past Joe and a few others and rounded the leward mark 4th. Brent and Chris were having a nice battle for 1, 2. Bob Cole was firmly in third. Steve Bender was able to get around me and finish fourth riding a nice puff into the finish. All in all a tough day with a 4, 5, 5 and a wrapped spinnaker.
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