The Sunset Harbor Challenge is a pursuit race and the Sunfish was designated as the start boat. Our start was 03:31 behind that and the start line offered a pin end port tack as the quickest way to the first mark. Our plan although poorly communicated by the helmsman (yours truly)  was to come in on a starboard tack about a minute behind the line at the pin, tack to port, and cross the line exactly at 11:33:31. We would then on port with speed and ignore or at least avoid the five other smaller boats that might be approaching on starboard tack. To cash a previously coined and overly used cliché, “I love it when a plan comes together”. The best part was coaching Mike to sheet in the Sunfish and head for the line. This caused him to get a great start and removed him from the spot where we needed to be to execute our plan.

The disrespected whisker pole will retract its revenge. At least two of the soon to be tiresome wind shifts required tacking to make the first mark, barely four hundred yards from the start line. Show Me rounded first and bore off for Lemon Point and the opening to the big part of Lake Weir. Outside the cut the wind backed to astern and Andy set his notorious whisker pole. I think the pole knows that I have cast aspersions on its length and took a moment to retaliate as it let go the clew of the genoa and dropped the outboard end into the water. Andy and Diane made short work of correcting that situation and little or no ground was giving to the San Juans and Harpoons seeking to displace us. The pole was not finished with me, as soon as it was returned to proper position it retracted itself and the scramble to avoid diminishing our lead resumed.

We held the lead for the first five or six marks, the wind shifts becoming more dramatic, erratic, and unpredictable with every passing boat length. Two hundred yards behind us Kyle Everly’s Dat Dang boat and Fisk Hayden’s Ole Yeller were getting lifted forty five degrees while we got knocked toward shore and shallow water. One of the scows had managed to climb even further upwind and soon got in front of us well to windward.  We tacked out of the shallows and headed out far enough for deep water managing to tack back in time to stay in from of the creeping San Juans.  Again, however, Dat Dang Boat, got lifted, we got headed and at mark number seven the cleared the mark ahead of us by less than a boat length. Dat Dang Boat continued up the shore line, we acknowledged that you cannot win by following and tacked out for the middle of the Lake.

Prior to mark seven the course had demanded a close haul or close reach port tack. The course to mark eight would have been directly upwind if the wind had any level of consistency. As a result the fleet split to nearly every course ninety degrees to either side of the rhumb line.  At first we gained on everyone but the scows.  Vacuous arenas and confused spiraling zephyrs landed on the surface of the water in between us and marker number eight. Remaining avenues to our destination formed a constantly changing maze of light and dark images on the water. Each one offered the possibility of a sensational advancement or a positional devastation.  Deceived by the false promise of a lifted path to an advantageous rounding we tacked and then watched as Carlton and Aggie Brown’s San Juan 21 Just Us, and just about everybody else beat us to the mark. The next three marks, in the lee of the Northwest shore line caused a clog and cubic miles of bad air in cubic yards of shared air space. The leaders, the Nacra, the Hobie 21, a couple of scows and Just Us, got through early and paid little. The rest of us were unable to buy clear air with a third mortgage.

Why is everybody taking my air?