The day was unusual. There was a forecast of lots of rain the day before and clearing by noon, with wind of 11 kts. from Southwest. But as usual, we got very little rain. The wind turned out to be a good speed, 9 plus and minus 3 kts, but came from the South.
The problem with the South wind is that it brings some wave action since
Coronado Roads is exposed to the South and Southwest. The waves ran about 4 to
8 feet, crest to trough and made boat handling somewhat difficult when the waves
were large. In the process of setting the weather mark, we had a set of
large waves and lost the pennant buoy Nr. 2. As a result, the Committee
decided to change to
Ocean Course Nr, 1, with only two marks. In that manner we did not
need to set nor risk buoys Nr. 3 and 4.
This reversed course, then, was three windward/leeward laps with a
downwind finish. The Race started about 1215 hours and all boats started
on starboard tack. Throughout the upwind legs, the boats that went to
port tack early appeared to gain an advantage over the boats staying to
the left side of the course. Victory 648 missed an instruction about the
lost buoy Nr. 2 and no reaching buoys set, so she went past the first
windward mark and kept going to windward until 641 rounded the weather
mark. Then 648 realized what happened and turned to follow 641. At the
end of the first and second downwind legs, the boats were in the order:
641, 648, 618 and 615. By the third windward rounding, 648 had taken
the lead. However 641 sailed faster, running downwind, in the dying
breeze of the final leg and was catching up. However, at the finish, 648, with
Leon and Williams, managed to keep the lead by only about two boat lengths.
648 finished at about 1340 hours.
Results:
| Skipper | Club | Boat | Finish |
| Sandy Leon & Tracy Williams | CSC | 648 | 1 |
| Michael Keane & Dave Wright | TPSC | 641 | 2 |
| John Hutcheson & Kevin Gerbracht | CSC | 618 | 3 |
| James Otto & Uwe Manske | CSC | 615 | 4 |
| Terry Edlund | CSC | 633? | DNS |
I believe that several skippers were worried about the weather and
decided to avoid the poor forecast. They were probably right, in that the
weather was unusual. The National Weather Service really missed the forecast
because little rain fell here and there were no thunderstorms. There were,
however, six waterspouts reported on the Ocean between Carlsbad and Del Mar on
Saturday afternoon. The skippers from Mission Bay were unable to race due to
other commitments.
The Committee was Alex Leondis, Bob Coburn and Tony Atenaide in Ensign
453. Thanks also to John Zenari for being on hand to assist the racers with
preparations.