The KSC Open turned out much better than I could have hoped, in terms of wind.

Saturday, Sept 2

Forecasted “floating conditions” threatened to put a damper on the event, but a steady breeze of about 6 knots filled in from the west, allowing us to get some good races in.  In the Albacore fleet, we had four boats from Nepean (all National level sailors) as well as Balazs and Tom N representing KSC.  For the Lasers, we had Carla going up against KSC youths Zombor and Csanad, all of whom selected full rigs for the light air day.

Simon/Elenor set the pace with a few early wins, with Peter/Ross and Dominic/Patrick fighting for second.  Dominic found his grove and racked up a couple of wins later in the day.  Former KSCer Jim and Irene set were able to hold of Balazs/Tom most of the time to score 4th place finishes (and even a second, beating out Peter/Ross and Simon/Elenor in a light-wind race where tactics was everything).

On the single-hander front, Carla was the early favourite, taking 3 of the 4 first races, with Zombor coming up behind.  Csanad made the most of the light-wind 5th race and used an amazing start to his advantage, to leave both Zombor and Carla in his wake.  He even passed one or two of the big Albacores, which usually do better in light air.

Lunch on the water was AMAZING, with Annie and Jean providing amazing ham and turkey sandwiches, brownies, juice boxes and pop.  This is in addition to the coffee, muffins, and other prep work that they had done before the boats were even rigged.  This regatta owes a huge debt to those two, working their butts off to make things happen.  Many thanks to Tony as well who drove the mark set boat and ensured we had square courses of appropriate length all day, and to Heidi without whom scoring and starting the races would’ve been quite difficult.

Sunday, Sept 3, in which I was introduced to match racing

If the story of the day for Saturday was “light winds”, the story for Sunday was “heavy air in rain”.  The forecast was “12 knots, gusting 21” aka “heavy wind with nuclear gusts”.  It turned out to be a more steady 13-16 knots, with the waves being killer.  Most of the fleet (Jim/Irene, Peter/Ross, Simon/Elenor, Csanad, and Balasz) did the wise thing and stayed ashore in the nice warm, dry club house.  Dominic/Patrick, Carla, Zombor, and Tom were game for a bit of fun though, so Heidi and Jason set a course.  Remember how Balazs was smart, and decided to stay dry?  Well Jean and Csanad volunteered do RC with Heidi, which meant Jason could take up the “it seemed like a good idea at the time” mantle, and jumped into the Albacore with Tom, to represent KSC alongside Carla (in a Byte today) and Zombor (in a radial Laser).

The first race saw Dominic/Patrick jump out to an early lead with Tom/Jason and Zombor close behind.  Jason/Tom tacked onto port which forced Zombor to bear off.  Curses, a 720 for Tom/Jason.  Having said that, the Albacore soon passed Zombor, and closed the gap with Patrick/Dominic on the last couple of legs, finishing less than a minute behind.  Zombor came in third, followed by Carla who capsized and was forced to retire after the race.

The second race is really the one to write home about.  It may not have happened quite like this, but this is the way I remember it, and I’m sticking to my story.  Jason/Tom won the start over Dominic/Patrick.  Although NSC boat seemed set up to point better than the KSC Albacore, Tom/Jason would tack to cover, and Patrick/Dominic would try to break cover.  A slow tack near the windward mark meant that Jason/Tom had a lead by the reaching legs.  On the first reach, Patrick/Dominic had greater boat speed, but Jason/Tom held them off by sailing defensively, and rounded the gybe mark first.  Dominic/Patrick changed their strategy and sailed high on the second leg, passing Tom/Jason to windward, but then having to bear off to get to the leeward mark.  They were overlapped within the circle, so (rather than go around) Jason/Tom elected to slow down, get in behind Patrick/Dominic and tacked around the mark.  It was neck and neck for the first half of the second windward leg, but the Patrick/Dominic were able to outpoint Tom/Jason and got to the upwind mark first.  The downwind was processional, with Dominic/Patrick taking the race by about 30 seconds over Jason/Tom.  Still, not bad considering Dominic is one of the top Albacore sailors in the country.

In hindsight, I should have headed up on that second reaching leg, and forced Dominic past the mark so I could stay on the inside around the leeward mark.  Ah well, live and learn.

Zombor finished the race in nice style, but as he was the only Laser on the course it was very much a “the boat vs the waves” sail.

Back at the KSC Clubhouse, the party was in full swing, with NSC and KSC folks together were watching the “match race” of KSC’s Tom/Jason vs NSC’s Patrick/Dominic and there was cheering, laughter, and an all around good time.  I’m glad we were able to put on a show!

Award ceremonies were held, with Dominic/Patrick winning first overall for Albacores, and Carla winning first for the Lasers.  Dominic and Carla went home with nicely engraved KSC beer mugs, and Patrick (being under 19) went home with a nicely engraved pop mug that looks remarkably like a beer mug.

Thanks again to Heidi, Jean and Csanad for running RC and Annie/Jean for providing food/coffee.

Results are final as of 15:20 on September 10, 2017

Albacore Division

Laser Division