The race to nowhere....

I love the races to Oxford. Those are the perfect short-handed race with long enough legs make to sense short-handed, but not so long a course that you need to have 'watches'. They typically occur in the early spring and beginning of fall and so typically have decent winds and acceptable temperatures. There are bound to be tactical and strategic challenges. Tred Avon YC is a great host club at the finish.

This Saturday was the AYC Spring race to Oxford and I was psyched. Ten days out I started watching the weather. It was showing a 10-12 knot gusting to 20 run down the Bay with a following current. Then a beat through the Dogleg and up to the red before another reach down the Choptank and a beat to the finish. Perfect! Synergy is competitive and a hoot in those conditions.

AYC was not permitting any single-handed entries, so I was planning to sail with my friend Julian, which as much as I like single-handing, was an added bonus.

But as the race approached I began seeing predictions of lighter and lighter winds with a big zero-wind dead-spot in the middle of the race. Its rare that there is a convergence between the various weather prediction sources, but by Friday the projections for this weekend they all matched perfectly.

Not to be deterred I did my usual weather routing study. The dead-spot hit the course about an hour after the start. It hit the next weather station heading down the course about an hour later, and the one after that roughly another hour later. Overlaying my anticipated speeds in those light winds, it became apparent that the dead zone would essentially follow the racers down the Bay, and that even with a shortened course, I could not make the finish line by the deadline.

Beyond that, serious rain storms and high winds were predicted to start a couple hours after the race and rain was predicted the next day, so burn and turn wasn't even a good option.

I probably would have chanced it if I was single-handed, but knowing what I knew about the predicted weather, I could not ask a crew to do that. This weekend became the race to nowhere as I decided to not even try to start. Those who did race said that the predictions were basically right with even the grand prix boats taking five hours to finish the shortened course 15 nm course with a knot of following current.

Instead I went out day-sailing. It was a lovely day for that. The dreaded dead spot showed up and as predicted slid off quickly to the south, so I had nice breezes for most of the sail. On the way home I ducked into Annapolis Harbor. Coincidentally my wife and a friend were walking in the Naval Academy as I sailed past and called to me.
 

I swung around and went back to say Hello....

Barbara beat me home and was relaxing in the Adirondack chairs up on the bluff at the house. She snapped this picture as I motored in towards the dock.