Come on out to Galesville MD this Sunday for the CRAC/WRCRA Lighthouse Race! Weather permitting, the course will take us to Thomas and Bloody Point Lighthouses, starting and finishing in Galesville. Afterwards we'll gather at the Riverview Restaurant for drinks, eats, and trophies.

Check out CRAC Website for details!

Bump!

SW WINDS 15 KT...SHIFTING TO THE W IN THE AFTERNOON. WAVES
1 FT. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS IN THE MORNING.

Whoo-hoo!! Don't worry about those possible showers; you're gonna get sprayed anyway w/15. Out of the west so fairly flat water. Let them big dogs run! Just maybe possibly teensy bit too rough for a certain A-cat to walk away from a certain H-20...

Well the high point comes down to who beats who in the head to head... CRAC Highpoint standings

Nah... he has renamed the blue bombshell... its now magic carpet ride... AND he has recruited assitance... he will be fine!
Lighthouse entries and photos!

Personally... I would have opted for Barbra Eden... for my blonde bombshell crew.... much classier then his choise of Anna Nicole Smith! Besides... she just got married again.

I havent' decided who I should recruit for crew on my first race on the flyer. Anybody have any suggestions?

Competitor list

But the real question...will Colette get back on the front of the boat again after that last 30 mile ride in the middle of the night in 20 to 25 with 5 to 6 foot chop. A tale of death and destruction Go Collete

I told her it was going to be 15, and she got THAT look, and said "You told me that LAST time!" She's been looking forward to this one; look out guys :-)

I'm anxious to read the harrowimg accounts of doom and survival <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Sorry Tad, no tails of carnage, this time. Light air got the show started and it was musical chairs down to Bloody Point Lighthouse. I'm pretty sure that Mark Schneider was the first non-spin around the lighthouse on his new Flyer and Dave Fornarno was the second on his (and Hooter's) Mark 4. The spin boats were so far ahead I couldn't tell who was there first. Chris B (Bsquared), the only finisher of the ill fated Twilight Race, with supercrew Collette, bailed out due to shear boredom. Of course as soon as they bailed the breeze started to fill in. We had a nice 10 - 15 for 2/3 of the ride back. Thanks Chris!! It was great coming back into the West River passing the lead sleds on a close reach (since I way overstood). I had to run so I don't know the finishes but it was another beautiful day on the Bay.

Many thanks to Mark Schneider, Jody Perkins and all the others who put this thing together and helped out to make it work.

Ed

We escaped the West River doldrums and snuck out into the lead by staying on the South shore of the West River and then the Western shore of the Bay for a bit. The port jibe across the Bay was the painful part with the disorganized chop, so trying to minimize time spent there was key - but you could only avoid it so much as eventually you had to go east to get to Bloody Point! Roger eventually rolled us, and then it was a great fight to the lighthouse between us and John McLaughlin/Bobby Noll. Just before the lighthouse John edged us, so at Bloody Point it was Roger, John, and Us. Right behind was Constantine on the Taipan, as he had just rolled Doug and Andy. Upwind Doug and Andy got us, but we somehow managed to keep Constantine behind us (at least on the water). John and Bobby had a problem near the finish, so over the line it was Roger and Joe, Doug and Andy, John and Bobby, Alec and me, Todd and Mike. Roger really took off upwind with his new main sail on the SC-22. We had him in our sights going downwind, but once he turned the mark he was gone! Then came the A-Cat onslaught...

Great day on the Bay! Light and challenging at the start and through the West River, but it filled in enough for a decent spin ride to Bloody Point. The course to the light and back actually made for about as good a downwind/upwind course as you can get - there were no drag races going on.

If the spin boats owned the downwind ride to lighthouse, the A-Cats ruled the upwind side. Light conditions on the way back started to give way as some clouds were moving on the West shore producing some really nice outflow. Almost all the distance we got on the spin ride out disappeared to the A's during the upwind sailing on the way back. What awesome boats (I hate them <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ). We got to cut some distance off Doug and John when we caught a shift at the end that kept us going between close reach and beat to the finish, but we didn't need to tack like they did.

Great day on the Bay. No death and destruction that I know of, unless you count getting taken up to windward near the finish by a Chespeake 20 who either didn't see us or didn't like getting passed to windward by a cat. I did ask Alec if there was a particular place on the Bay he would like for me to fall off the boat. But since he didn't answer me I decided to stay onboard this time. It really does work out better that way, hoodafiggereddat. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

So, hey, it looks like we do occasionally just have a good sailing day!

Results are posted

Lighthouse Results

The Offical results are the Portsmouth results

The texel results are for entertainment purposes only.
I made the supercat 22 rating up.... It is not official!

My apologies to my fellow competitors for bailing out. Supercrew had time constraints and from where we were it didn't look good. IF that wind hadn't come up going back, it would have been a slow day. IF we had been further up front, we might have blown off the other tasks with the justification of a good finish. From that aspect at least, I feel guilty about bailing. She did get to read 50 pages of her book (with only one minor splash); that should tell you how exciting the non-spin downwind ride was :-) I gave her the helm going back upwind; she learned a little there too. Our congratulations to the finishers and winners; great concentration on an up and down day. How about that start where the breeze went away with 25 seconds to go, and EVERYONE was way back off the line? Bet that looked impressive from shore :-) Or the new breeze that brought the whole fleet back up and over the first 5 boats that looked like they were going to break away? That WAS impressive, unless you were one of the first 5 :-(

Turned out to be a great day on the bay (even though I got schooled)!!! Great thanks to Mark and Jodie (and Chris A for helping at the start) for putting this together and another to Mark for getting results up quickly. Chris, I'm giving you credit for taunting the wind gods enough to bring some breeze, surely had you not bailed, we'd all still be sitting out there rolling with the tides!

TB