vicarious travelling: A tale of 2 races and a BBQ

Rick and I had sailing races scheduled on back to back weekends (along with the usual Wednesday night race in between).

The first was the Chaos Race, out of Port Dover.

As the slowest boat, we started first. We had to round three marks of the course, in either direction.

It was very windy, wavy and gray. Either on the helm or trimming the sails required both hands and there was no time to relax or take pictures (or eat)

XRacer went by us going in the opposite direction (the only boat to choose to go around the course counter clockwise), Messenger and Windhover (pictured) passed us but the rest of the fleet stayed in our wake.

Rounding the marks was busy with having to tack the sails and we kept forgetting to look at the time. But really all that mattered was our start and finish times....9:48am to 2:18pm. We finished 2nd overall to Messenger who, as a large boat, had a much easier time with the windy conditions. We convened back at the Yacht Club and ate what we had taken out with us but had been unable to even dig out, along with crew from a number of other boats.

The following weekend we drove to Oakville for the Open Regatta hosted by the Oakville Club

Joining the premier private waterfront club, The Oakville Club, involves an initiation fee of over $10,000, monthly dues of approximately $400, and an annual food and beverage minimum of $600.

Gord and Dianna had sailed Windthief down the day before

and she was squished in like a sardine on the opposite side of the river at the Oakville Yacht Squadron. While the "Club" had a pool, tennis court and a banquet hall, the Yacht Squadron had a couple of washrooms, deck and bar. It just took a radio call to get ferried across the river.

Gord and Dianna were ferried back from the Skippers Meeting and everyone started to head out on to the lake.

There were the local boats but also boats from other clubs on Lake Ontario (Celtic Spirit is another Hamilton boat that Windthief races against in Hamilton Harbour.)

As we headed out, the waves breaking over the breakwall were the first indications of the conditions.

Waves were about 5 foot with long, rolling whitecaps. The wind about 20knots and building.

Dianna, on the helm, had some trepidation, but it soon became obvious that the boat could take it. Windthief is a 36ft C&C, built solid and stable.

Mind you it wasn't easy to move around, or even sit, with the lake throwing us around like that.

We put up the main sail and, with the rest of the fleets, tacked back and forth, listening on the radio to the committee boat crew struggling to set the race marks and to a few boats deciding to retire before the race even started.

Which it never did. The waves kept lifting the race marks and the wind kept moving them and finally the committee boat cancelled the race. We waited for most of the other boats to clear the harbour before we headed back in

followed by the committee boat.

The breakwall waves were even more impressive now.

We set up the umbrella to shade the cockpit and had lunch and wine, bruised and disappointed.

We had tickets to dinner so now had to kill some time so we went for a walk

out to the shore for some more

splash photography.

into the park between the lake and the river

and then back

down to walk the docks and watch

little remote control sail boats racing.

Dinner up by the pool and then, surprisingly tired, we drove home.

The next day we celebrated Hadley's birthday....Hadley still races on Wednesdays and Mondays and most regattas and is a member of the PDYC Sailing School Committee which I also sit on.