Bracing for Bill

Written by: Jens

Its 10:30am as I write this. The rain started at about 9:00 am. It’s just been a steady rain, and at this point, the wind is blowing from the east at about 10-12 knots (20-25km). I woke up at about 5:00 am and had a peak out - all was calm - not what I was expecting.
At 6:30 am, I went outside and took a couple of pictures and decided to go for a bike ride, as Bill seemed to be late in arriving. I rode the same bike trail that Brad and I took a week ago. I noticed an ocean freighter anchored in the bay, he must be going to ride out the storm at anchor. I rode for 2 hours, and got back just as the rain started.

Yesterday, after Brad went out, the other fleets hung around for about 2 hours, before they were given the horn to go. I worked for about another hour after all the sailors were gone. I heard a radio report from the race committee that they were on the other side of St. Margaret's Bay, near the viewing spots I had used before. So, I went with Bill Fuller, and his friend Kelly, over to that side, to watch some of the races.
Using 20x binoculars mounted on my camera tripod, I was just able to make out sail numbers when the boats reached the bottom of the course. When we thought that the first boats were heading back to the club, we packed up and drove back, just in time to see Brad getting back.

After de-rigging the boats, all the boats were brought into the buildings and stacked against each other, either on their sides or on their transoms. Then it was off to sit out Hurricane Bill.


Written by Brad

We were greeted by fog again today when we arrived at the club. The Race committee decided to cancel the only race the blue fleet completed on the previous day due to the condition (see previous entry). So it was decided that only the blue fleet from yesterday go out an hour early to race there make-up race. After that race I was put into the yellow fleet. So I rigged up and hit the water still covered with fog. We actually had to wait at the channel mouth for about an hour waiting for the fog to clear. Once out on the race course the wind was blowing fairly hard and temperature was a little cool. Then literally when the RC set up the sun came out and the wind lightened up. The light wind didn’t last too long and by the start of the first race it was about 10-15 knots and stayed that way throughout the day. The first race went pretty well with the usually mid fleet first mark rounding and then losing some boats downwind. I found a bit of a groove the second downwind leg and held off a few more boats from passing on way to a better finish. Today, I am in the yellow fleet, and that means I have to start another race immediately as yellow is the 1st normal start. No rest time. I didn’t get too many shifts go my way and struggled throughout the race managing only to beat 10 boats. The last race of the day, once again no rest, I was starting to feel tried. Having only had two power bars to eat the entire day and a Gatorade, I was feeling it. In the last race, I had a bad start, covered by other boats, all taking my wind. Again, the first halve of the race was a struggle. I hit some good wind shifts the second upwind leg to pass a number of boats, only to have my race fall apart when German sailor decided to force me to the wrong side of the course, and then decide to literally stop me by luffing me up near the finish. This caused me to loss a number of boats at the finish line. I finished well back in this race.

On the sail back in to the sailing club the intense thick fog returned and visibility was minimal. After sailing back to the general direction of the club I found the channel and pulled the laser out of the water. We then had to completely de-rig the boat for storage until hurricane Bill passes. All the sailors have to be at the club for 7:00 am Monday morning to pull out all the boats to race again.