Wild Turkey Regatta - OSYC, Lake Sinclair, GA

Elliot on the dock with Dare, the breeze is starting to fill in a little in the distance. 15 Thistles were racing which was the best turn out for a number of years.















We removed Dare's red stripe which was faded to a light pink so now she looks like new with her freshly polished hull. The fact that we are now indistinguishable from 70% of the rest of the fleet did not stop us from being spotted over the start line early in race 3!





























She looks good for 40 years old, we are proud of the old girl!















A shot of the "old-school" spinnaker pole that Elliot and I made out of spanish cedar. It works great but the lacing for the uphaul D-ring came undone at a critical hoist. We re-laced it and sewed it all together which should avoid a repeat disaster.....hopefully!



















Although there was no wind at the dock, there was perhaps 8 to 10 mph out on the main body of the lake.















Good friends, Robert and Paul Mitchell who sailed well in their first regatta together.















I think we should have been hiking a little harder in this shot.



















Elliot is trimming the spinnaker nicely...we seems to have pretty good downwind speed but were not so good at spotting the puffs and gybing in the right places.
































































Harry Reich is closing in on us to take our wind, we had a lot of close racing with his boat which made it a lot of fun.




























I have trying to take big handfulls of mainsheet, as coached by Bryce, but still seem slow at trimming the main, especially at the leeward mark. Elliot was getting very upset with me when we let boats by on the inside a few times!



















This is after racing was over on Sunday, we ended up paddling in as the dock was protected from the wind by a line of trees.














Garry Smillie and Sean Murphy, with Scott Harris in the background.














Dad always seems to end up with the paddle.....














We were really pleased with how we sailed with fewer than usual mistakes. Our spinnaker pole came unlaced during one race which was a big problem....a quick knot or two got us back up a running allowing a better fix before racing on Sunday. Our spinnaker halyard cleat also would not hold which nearly resulted in dropping it under the boat, so Elliot dismantled and fixed it later in the day.

Our starts were far better than usual as we followed a very simple plan.....stick with the fast boats! We also tried hard to sail to the favoured end of the line....if the wind shifts left...go to the pin, if right stay at the committee boat. The allowed us to sail with some of the best sailors...at least for bit, on the correct side of the course, on the lifted tack. We also tried hard to keep the boat flat by hiking and playing the mainsail, letting it flog if necessary. Another thing we focused on was to steer by balancing the boat to keep pressure off the tiller, especially going downwind. We practiced sailing without the rudder the previous weekend with a very experienced Thistler from our club (Jim Smither), and I think this really helped raise our awareness of the affect of sail and hull trim on steering. A book I am reading by Dave Perry (thanks to Chris for the loan) makes a really big point about staying on the lifted tack, so we were working hard to spot headers and also watch other boats to determine what the next puff might do. Elliot is great at helping by reading the compass and has a good feel for telling if a header is real or not. The few times when I have failed to take his advice have not been a good experience!

We learnt a little about the racing rules at several points. We were on port with Jim Roberts and Bryce to leeward and ahead as we overstood the windward mark. We were gently asked by Bryce to tack and I thought we perhaps had broken the rules but we were in the right and could have sailed them to the opposite shore! We tacked together for the mark and somehow Jim got inside us! During one start were were probably too timid and backwinded our main to avoid going over early. Paul Abdullah was to leeward and slightly ahead and pinched us off beautifully....I wonder how he does that?? The over early incident was at the pin, I think in race 2. Greg Griffin (who won the regatta), was just to leeward and he ducked back over the line but we forged ahead. I was pretty sure I was over the line, but was hoping that our white hull had saved us from being spotted! I think there was a judge at the pin end that saw us....serves me right for cheating!

The closest Elliot gets to a smile :)















Congratulations to Greg for taking the regatta! It was really nice to see Jim Roberts do so well with Bryce as crew.

Rank	Sail No	Helm	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	Nett	Notes
1st	3976	Greg Griffin	2.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	1.0	9.0
2nd	3980	Michael Lenkeit	5.0	8.0	1.0	2.0	3.0	19.0
3rd	3997	Scott Griffin	6.0	2.0	4.0	1.0	7.0	20.0
4th	3998	Jim Roberts	3.0	5.0	3.0	8.0	4.0	23.0
5th	1167	Bob McCormack	4.0	3.0	5.0	5.0	6.0	23.0
6th	3985	Paul Abdullah	1.0	4.0	WD	4.0	2.0	28.0
7th	3746	John Fewell	8.0	6.0	8.0	6.0	5.0	33.0
8th	3951	Sean Murphy	7.0	7.0	6.0	10.0	8.0	38.0
9th	3974	Scott Harris	9.0	11.0	7.0	7.0	9.0	43.0
10th	3783	Harry Reich	12.0	13.0	9.0	12.0	10.0	56.0
11th	3444	Maureen Bresnahan	13.0	9.0	10.0	14.0	12.0	58.0
12th	2177	Dale Newnham	11.0	12.0	OCS	9.0	11.0	60.0
13th	3335	Tim Chambers	10.0	10.0	DSQ	11.0	13.0	61.0
14th	2918	Robert Mitchell	14.0	15.0	12.0	13.0	14.0	68.0
15th	2450	Don Read	DNF	14.0	11.0	15.0	15.0	72.0
16th	3029	Kat Mahaney	15.0	16.0	DNS	DNC	DNC	82.0