Mark,

Sounds good - I would really like to see the photos since I forgot my camera!

I updated the results to show the Net results (thanks Mark S.!)

I'm tellin ya. That water is just weird.

Whats even weirder is that you'll come across 3' deep sandbars in the middle of the bloody mile-wide river.

Fun times when you have a 7'3" keel.

I can't remember where on the river Don Lee is, whether its inland of the Ferries or not, but once you get past Cherry point the water calms quite a bit, outside that point, and the water from the sound piles up in there.

That's odd, it appears that US Sailing has updated the Portsmouth numbers for ISTP-2. When I copied them early this year, they were: 77.1, 82.5, 78.4, 76.7, 70.8. Checking the website now, they show a 250# min weight (which isn't how the class rules read) and the numbers: 77.1, 82.0, 77.1, 76.7, and 72.0. I never thought the numbers would change like that for an inactive class - go figure.

Anyway, the new numbers probably are more accurate - they reflect how I felt we did on the water.

And, yes, I felt it was 12+ knots most of the time. Fresh water starts whitecapping at about 12. The Neuse is brackish and it takes more wind to whip up salt water. I saw broad patches of water on the verge of whitecapping throughout the second race. The puffs were higher. My read of the wind was 12-14kts with puffs nearing 18.

Joleen was fully trapped out and I was hiking hard at times. I had to spill air twice in the biggest puffs - and that simply doesn't happen in 10kts on an Isotope. I usually don't trap out at all at 10kts singlehanded. At what point do H18s double-trap?

Anyway, it was fun until the mast broke. As best I can reconstruct the failure, I think the rotation limiter gave way. That let the mast rotate sideways suddenly at full load, and it simply folded in half. Frank Meldau (of IFG - the manufacturer) was very surprised. It was the first Isotope mast collapse in 30 years. Unfortunately, it shredded my mainsail in the process, so that's it for the season.

Regards,
Eric

Camp Don Lee property line adjoins Camp Sea Gull to the east is on the east side of the Minnisott Beach Ferry landing. And it is about 8 miles SW of Oriental. When I put my powerboat in on Friday I was running through the race area checking my depth gauge. I didn't encounter any sandbars and it's at least 8' deep from 200 yds off the beach. However, it did appear to bounce from 12 to some 40+ feet holes. But I'm not sure how reliable my depthfinder is. On Sat Garland said he had to use some extra line to get one of the marks to set.

On Sat I thought water was a little choppy at times but not really a problem. Loyd and I were double trapped all day and was never too overpowered. Wind observations from Cherry Point (just across the river) said W14 at 4 PM. In all LOTS of fun.