West Coast Sailing Grand Prix

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Whiskeytown is a fresh water lake in a national recreation area. The lake's elevation is 1209 feet. The forecast called for 20% chance of showers and we got a dry weekend. The water temp was in the 60s and air temp the 80s. Sailing in a rash guard was warm enough. The 2nd liter of hydration I carried got used

Whiskeytown is flat water. The air was generally light, with the strongest steady breeze closer to 5 knots than 10 knots. Sometimes there was no breeze. Sometimes there were long periods of really really light breeze, say 2-3 knots. There was only one race with a steady "solid" breeze from one direction.

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of this regatta. Bruce Braly has sailed 40 of those years.

There was an A fleet on Whiskeytown Lake this year: Jim Christopher, Bruce Braly and Mike Eichwald. Last year, going right towards the shore on beats towards the dam was a common move. This exploits wind bend and paid consistently. This year, the A fleet did not go to the shore most of the time. Bruce said always sail towards the pressure no matter what.

On one start, two boats saw relatively strong breeze in shore on the right side of the beat, and tacked onto port right away. Two other boats went left into the middle of the lake, and stayed on starboard. I saw the puff on the right after a bit and tacked onto port. It died in the middle, where I was, got stronger on the right and pressure also showed up on the left. So the other boats got to the weather mark 100s of yards ahead of me. That was typical of the kind of sailing going on.

During the last race, the weather mark was towards the dam but the other side of the lake. Mike went left hard to cross the lake first. Jim Christopher and I went way right for different reasons. There was breeze say 2/3s of the way to the mark, but none at the mark. The Banshee fleet ahead of us was in a parking lot taking forever to close in on the mark. It sure looks like Mike made the right call, but he started thinking he was going to the wrong mark as Jim and I were way across the lake near the other weather mark. So he bailed. Too bad, that might have been an enormous horizon job.

Sitting still is key, as small movements would shake all the flow off. The air was so light roll tacks didn't help, or I never was able to do them slowly and gently enough in the calm air. Roll gybes seemed to work more often. Generally, Whiskeytown does not seem like a place for kinetic techniques.

Keeping the boat moving on the start line helps. In stronger breeze, you can sheet in and accelerate quickly. In the lighter air, it takes longer to build speed.

Laser sailor Tom Burden won the Ultimate 20 fleet, so he gets excused for not sailing his Laser.

Tim Russell, a lapsed Laser sailor, won the Wabbit fleet.

Nate Cutler, briefly a Laser sailor, was racing an old custom trimaran sporting a Hobie 18 rig.

Del Olsen, PRO for 2012 Laser Masters North Americans and PRO for 2013 Laser Masters Pacific Coast Champs, was racing an international canoe.