Century Club: Richard Turman

Winds were 13-15 at the start, and built during the race, to be an even 15, per the RC.  All from the South, so we started at A and tacked South to C.  Stayed to the left side of the course, but with only three of us in the boat, got knocked a lot and had to ease main to reduce heel.  Let traveller out mid to all of the way, dependimg on wind intensity.  Once we rounded C, went wing and wing for about 100 yards, and then decided to deploy the spinnaker.  The highest wind we'd ever surfed in, and we were able to control it, but we only jibed once, since control was not that great.  Spent most of our time dead down wind since if we were above that we had issues staying in control.  Team Fiona has really improved, though, to the point that we were able to even entertain puttng up the spin in such wnd.  Dowsed early since there was a parade of big boats headed for A and we didn't want to be in that mess with a spin up and very little control.  Had to jibe anyway to round A, and then tacked fairly soon to get back upwind to B.  Contemplated raising the spin again on the way back to A, but it was a beam reach, and we were able to go 5.8-6 without it, and with that wind, it was too much for a spin.  Came acros 12th, and corrected over several boats to end up 10th out of 16 boats who started.  Not as good as last week, where we were 2nd, but that was mostly a fluke -- the good news is that we beat all the otherr boats in our start.  Job well done by Team Fiona, especially given that we were late arriving -- got there during the starting sequence, which started at 6:10 -- right on time.

Rainy and cold (high of 54! )on Friday and Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.  Monday finally heated up to low 70's.  After spending the afternoon helping hang things on the wall at my daughter's apartment, got home at 7, and then took the sailboat out.  Sailed until after sunset, and then came in.  Nice breeze from the South.  Gotta love summer sailing!

Thunderstorm predicted on radar for 5:45, so the Round Bay Sailing Association wisely postponed our normal start time from 6:15 p.m. until the thunderstorm threat passed.  We all assembled off Long Point, but there wasn't enough wind to start for about 15 minutes.  There were 3 mph when RC started the sequence, but once our start took off, the wind died back.  We moved forward about .7-1.1 mph for about 20 minutes, not getting very far from the starting line as the next two waves of boats joined us in the race -- and not moving much.  We started with the wind on the North, but it moved to West after a short bit, and eventually filled in from S, so we put up our spins and finally made it to the original windward mark, going downwind.  A bizarre race, but our Harbor 20 had line honors, which has only happened once before in the 5 years I've been racing here.  I'm now just hoping for a finish in the top third of the fleet once the handicapping math all gets done.  Pretty cool, though, for us to end up looking back from the finish line at all the spinnakers coming at us!

Wind from the N in the ~12 range, with gusts to 15, and 80+ degrees.  Took my brother out on his last day before he flew home to MN, and had the most wind in the week he'd been here.  Reefed the main and took off downwind to N, and then turned up to return to A.  Quite glad we were reefed once we came upwind, since the water down there was beginning to whitecap, and without a third body, we had a hard time keeping the boat flat.  Beautiful, zesty ride back upwind, and then turned home to get him back to his evening dinner appointment.  Wonderful afternoon on the water with my sibling!