A great final race night of the season reminded the club what it’s like when the wind actually shows up! Season results at the bottom of the page, but I’ll write a bit about the Aug 28 race night first 🙂

Eleven boats showed upon Wednesday evening, with steady air blowing on the verge of whitecaps, at least for the start of the night. Capt Steven volunteered for R/C (thanks!) and set a nice clockwise course. Even though the wind started to slow with the setting sun, there was enough to move all night long, and some of the closest racing I’ve ever seen at KSC was to be had.

The first start saw the boats hit the line in a gust with a few seconds to go, forcing a lot of boats to bear off and hope they weren’t over early. Ken Skublics nailed his start, forcing the other boats to catch up to his Laser. Steve and Tom, and Carla and Liz each had taken a Tasar and could point high, but would it be enough? The 470 made its racing debut, sailed by the trio of Jean, Olivier, and Corinne, throwing another question mark into the mix. Mark and Eric each took out other Lasers, Stefan in an Inviatations, Rey and Deb in Bytes, and Emily/Aidan in a Quest, and Jason in his tippy Musto rounded out the fleet.

The starboard tack line ran along the shore, with Steve/Tom tacking a bit early toward the middle of the river, but I’m not sure how much was gained bu the manouver – uncharacteristically, the wind seemed better by the shore. At the upwind mark there were 5 boats all rounding in quick succession (two Tasars, Ken’s Laser, the 470, and the Musto) and there was lots of overtaking or defensive sailing done on the next couple of legs. It really shows how much the skill level of the fleet has improved over the past few years, rather than just one or two sailors completely walking away with it.

The wind started to slow, and Jason hit a hole when he tacked early at the leeward mark – almost the entire fleet passed him. (Note to self, figure out what I did wrong here). The other boats wisely stayed on starboard and again climbed up the course. Tom/Steve took the race followed by Liz/Carla (a Tasar 1-2 finish).

The wind started to pick up for the second race, and we again had an awesome start, with 4 or 5 boats all hitting the line in quick succession. Jason and Tom/Steve were playing leapfrog this race, with the Tasar outpointing Jason on the upwinds, but Jason making betting VMG on the reaching/downwind legs. The Tasar was ahead by a few boatlengths at the final upwind mark, and Jason made a tactical decision to fly the kite, reach for boat speed, and throw in a gybe on the last leg. The plan worked, and he just beat the Tasar by a couple of boatlengths, for his first win of the season (for comparision, Steve had 14).

The other performance double-handers (Carla/Liz in the Tasar, Corinne/Olivier/Jean in the 470) rounded out the top finishers, followed by the single-handers led by Ken’s Laser, and the Quest.

Season results

With 36 unique racers and 19 races this season, we had a pretty good turnout. The one thing which didin’t show up a lot was the wind, forcing us to cancel 3 race nights in a row with either lightning, or dead air.

Using KSC’s traditional drop-1-of-3 scoring system, we only count the best 13 scores of the 19 races, and add up the points to see who wins with the lowest points. With 14 wins, and a few 2nd/3rd places, Steve Harrington had the lowest possible score of 13 points, and is once again KSC Champion! Yay Steve! (how many years running is this?)

But the real challange was for those coveted second, third, and fourth places, where us mere mortals have a chance.

Ken Skublics took home the second position, by consistently scoring 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishes thoroughout the year. He also wins the “best looking Laser at the club, by far” award for that shiny blue thing. Liz locked up third on the final night with great finishes over the year in a variety of boats. Mike and Jason were just behind her and tied for 4th/5th, but each had a few too many missed races hurting the points total. Carla pulls in 6th and a special shout out goes to our youngest racer Nora who finished 7th. Tom, Mark and Olivier round out the top 10, with Mark and Olivier tied for 9th/10th.

Thanks again for a great season, and I hope to see you next year! An extra special thank you to the volunteers who ran race comittee this year, including Sam, Danika, Keelee, Steven, Deb, Jean, and others whom I’m sure I am missing. We can’t run decent races without you, and it’s much appreciated!

Provisional season results:

Scoring notes

How does the scoring work you may ask?

Simple version: you get 1 point for first place in a race, 2 points, for second, etc. We take your 13 best (lowest) scores and add them up to get your net score. Lowest total wins!

Longer version:

You get 1 point for first place in a race, 2 points, for second, etc.

“But what if I don’t come to all the races?”. A score of “DNC” (did-not-come) is scored as the number of people who did come, plus one. So for the first race of the season, we had 8 boats, and everyone who didn’t come scored 9 points. “DNF” (did-not-finish) is similar, except it implies that you were there and started the race, so you score better than people who didn’t come at all.

Because people have lives outside the sailing club, go on vacations in the summer, can’t make a given race night, etc, our scoring system lets you drop your worst score for every 3 scores. That means we only count 13 of the 19 races this year. A few DNC races therefore isn’t going to hurt your score. You could miss 6 races and still never be penalized for a DNC. Missing more than 6 this year though would start to hurt your standings.