Home	Nationals Regatta, October 26, 2013

(If you like, you can skip down through the prose and go straight to the pictures below!)

This year's Nationals Regatta was wrapped up in Richmond Yacht Club's fun end-of-season Great Pumpkin Regatta. We had six Islanders participating, with the three races on Saturday used for the Nationals Regatta, and the Sunday pursuit race as an added bonus - billed as a "bring the family" day.

Lou Zevanov provided this narrative of the racing from his perspective sailing in the afterguard on Kit wiegman's Cassiopeia.

For Saturday's first race the wind was about 8 knots, and Cassiopeia won the start, set a chute on the downwind legs, and held on to win the first race. And that was short handed with only four aboard as three crew didn't show! The wind had increased to a refreshing 16 knots for the second race and, after a good start, things got out of hand with the short-handed crew taking the chute down at the leeeward mark. Long story short, with the chute out of control, we sailed right on past the leedward mark with the chute winding up in the water in front of the boat. We sailed right over it, and whether you call that "seining for shrimp," or "setting the parking break," it was a long, slow time before we managed to get the sopping wet sail back aboard. With the fleet long gone and a third race scheduled, a risk/reward decision was made to inform the Race Committee that we were withdrawing from the second race, and, with a now exhausted short-handed crew, skipping the third race.

Windwalker was second in the first race, and won both the second and third races to win the Winton Nationals Trophy. Roy Samuelson's Some Day took a 2nd in the second race and with 4th in the first and third race, beat Steve & Jocelyn's Zingara by one point to take second, with Zingara winding up 3rd. Bill & Pattie O'Connor's Vivace was just one point back in 4th, with Rich Egan's Kapai another point back in 5th. So from 2nd to 5th there was only 1 point between boats -- that's fun racing.

Here are the details and some pictures of the fleet on the water, and snug at Richmond YC's docks on Saturday night.

Section 17 - Islander 36					Race	Race	Race
Sail #	Boat Name	Skipper	Place	Points	1	2	3	Club
57307	WINDWALKER	Richard Shoenhair	1	4	2	1	1	sss
580	SOME DAY	Roy Samuelson	2	10	4	2	4
484	ZINGARA	Steve And Jocelyn Swanson	3	11	6	3	2	sbyc
16720	VIVACE	Bill & Pattie O'Connor	4	12	3	4	5	ryc
438	KAPAI	Richard Egan	5	13	5	5	3	sss
6763	CASSIOPEIA	Kit Wiegman	6	15	1	7	7	paccup

Pictures by Lou Zevanov & Rick Van Mell. Click on images to enlarge, click "Back" to return.

Kit drives Cassiopeia	Windwalker	Vivace	Kapai & Zingara
Windwalker	Lou Zevanov ...	drives.	Cassiopeia ...
wet sails & ...	mast in the sun.	Vicace ...	Into twlight.
Luna Sea ...	last light ...	End of Saturday.

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