Notes from November
19, 1999
We had a great day sailing.
We had eight boats on the pond if you count an electric duck and electric
pontoon boat. If not we had six
sailboats. We had to wait for some wind
and prior to that time we were drift racing.
Joe brought back his Thunder Tiger.
Bob had his IOM. Bobs friend had
his ODOM. Ken Tinker brought out his Duck and my Fairwind. Gary Deitz joined us from Santa Clarita
Valley and brought out his Sea Wind. I
had never seen a Sea Wind and it was a great chance to see the boat
perform. It looked like it was made for
light winds and the start of the day was perfect. I brought my IOM and my electric Pontoon boat. The
temperature was in the upper 70's. We
had a while to wait for a breeze to come up and it gave us a good chance to
talk about the boats and the differences.
It also gave me time to mal-adjust my sails.
For the first time we had a third marker on the pond. We tied some string onto a rock, the other
end onto a balloon and tossed it in the
pond. The water was down about 8"
from normal, and we had to guess how deep that end of the pond would be. So we tied on about 6' of string. The pond must have been oh, maybe 24"
deep. So the balloon floated off a bit
from the rock. Even so it worked out
fine until the pontoon boat got it's prop hung up on the string. It gave me my second chance to get in the
water.
I'm glad the day was fairly warm. I wore shorts and Bob Kizziar style sandals. This allowed me to get right in the water,
three times. Once when my IOM hung up
on the bottom. Once when my daughter
and grandson tried to role up the string with the pontoon boat prop and another
time to free up the ODOM. I should have
gone in a forth time and adjusted my sails.
We handicapped the races again.
I'm not sure who won I know that I chased Bob around the pond. I think the Sea Wind was doing fairly well
in the light wind. I heard Bob say
something about taking the handicap away from Joe. We did trot back and forth around the pond so we could see if we
were clear of the stand pipes so we could round them. I think Ken was smarter than us and pulled up his chair and
sailed. Gary had a good time trying out other boats and seeing how other
people built their boats.
It was nice seeing six, or eight depending how you count it,
boats on the pond. It was nice of Gary
to join us from the great Valley. It
was only a three hour drive for him. So
next time I expect he will bring his boat again and maybe a friend.
We were tired by the end of the day and fun was had by all.
Next month we meet on December 12th at Plaza Park 11 AM. The wind should be stronger and we should
have a temperature drop of 30 degrees.
The flying friends should be back from fishing trip and maybe we can get
George Rush and a couple of other guys to bring out their boats. Were all looking forward to the cooler
weather. If you can make it out to the
pond come on out.