Crescent City 2010

I missed my turn in Deland to go north on 17, ended up cutting through the Ocala National Forest. At least part of the roads were paved. An hour later than I planned, we got to the ramp, borrowed a mainsail from Kyle and spent more time figuring out how Old Yellow was supposed to be rigged. Orion and I were sailing Kyle’s San Juan and he was sailing a red Mark 1, that some San Juaners would know as Treachery ( as in “age, Treachery, and deceit beat youth and skill every time”). I had recently acquired Treachery from Lake Keowee in one or both of the Carolinas. , Randy Pawlowski’s keel cable broke on Pivot at the ramp, causing several delays (he ended up not sailing), we got to the start line just in time to get the first flag. The start line was seriously skewed toward the pin end, so that is where we started, and strangely enough we were the only one so we won the start by several boat lengths.

The course turned out to be much longer than previous years, and longer than I expected also. The wind was between 10 and 15 knots with at least one higher gust that put 20-30 gallons of water in the cockpit over the coaming. At the first mark Kyle used the wrong sailing instructions (he had missed the skipper’s meeting) and he turned south instead of north. We got behind Andy and Fisk on the Precision 23 and followed them to the right side of the coursewhich happened to be absolutely the wrong thing to do. Carlton and Aggie had gotten ahead at the first mark and we were gaining on them but they tacked and went to the left side which I thought was a mistake so we let them go. Kyle eventually got informed by one of the chase boats of his error and turned around but he was at least two miles behind by then, AT LEAST, maybe three miles behind.

As it turned out the left side of the course was incredibly favored and Just Us (Carlton and Aggie) beat us to the first mark by a quarter mile.  Kyle and Jeremy had stayed on the left side of the course and gained back all but a few hundred yards mile. Just Us was well ahead and chose not to fly the spinnaker so we didn’t either (mostly out of apathy). The Red Treachery of course popped the chute as soon as they rounded the mark and started gaining. Unwilling to be overtaken we got our spinnaker up and we began to gain a little on Carlton and Aggie. Kyle caught us about have way down the course but we managed to keep him from passing. We both gained a lot on Just Us but they were still a good way ahead at the leeward mark. We rounded the mark inside Kyle and slightly ahead, we tried to cover but he got away from us at least once and actually was ahead for a bit, I thought he had us but on the final leg in the last two or three hundred yards, we got a favorable wind shift and had a better line to the pin end of the line which allowed us to cross ahead of him by a few seconds. Carlton and Aggie were delighted to have won, we were glad that we managed to hold off Kyle and Kyle was glad to have made up so much time as to actually be in the running. At the ramp Kyle got a stick caught in his keel trunk and ended up in the water with the boat pulled all the way over on it’s side (spreaders in the water) to get it out. Something was still jammed and the nub that holds the pulley broke off his keel so there is another keel repair to do. Quite a day, hell of a race, had a real good time. Crescent Lake is a excellent place to sail, and Three Bananas is a party place, hard to beat that combination for a sailboat race.