Hi, Mary,

I tried to find you Sat. morning but the skippers' meeting was about to start and I don't know what you look like so it was going to take a little bit of sleuthing to find you. Maybe next time.

Regarding fluky wind on inland lakes, you know the saying: "that's why lake sailors look old and tired all the time." Gimme the Gulf any day. (One day, John, I'm going to crash one of your parties up there in P'cola.)

Though the Eustis regatta was in my backyard I did not take my Rave up there. Wind gusting to 35 is not what you want with a trimaran that has the capability of having NO hull friction (my Rave) in wind like that. Sailing with only three foils in the water can be hairy at 18mph windspeed. Sailing in twice that is just asking for a pitchpole or worse.

I left before the racing started but I wondered why no one was willing to go out with one reef. Do the cats and monos not have reefing points? The wind at 11 a.m. was only about 12-16, I think, if that.

My fellow Rave pilots were finishing setting up when I left but none of them had a reef in their sail. Hmmmm. I'd like to know what happened to them. I'll have to call them later today.

Ah, but I have other interests, as well. There was an exotic (fabulously excellent!) car show in Mt. Dora just down the road from the lake; a dangerous event for me to attend with accompanying wife's hand clamped onto my wallet. The crowd probably thought, "Oh, look, that woman is leading her husband around by his butt." The next day in Tampa we bought a little sports car for said wife. She's been a little glum since we sold the long held Alfa Spider. That was better than pitchpoling on Eustis but it would have been great with a little, or a lot, less wind up there.