Sean Brown’s reefed Olson 25 “Stargazer” (PHRF SPIN fleet) frolics in Sunday morning whitecaps.
By David Newland, Sportboat Fleet / Race Committee
At 12:15 pm on Saturday, nobody had an idea what our season kick off day would look like. Well, I’ll admit it looked like a mill pond, which makes ice bergs hard to see.
By 12:20, a nice breeze settled in and stayed the entire afternoon. Sunny, 67 degrees and 5-7 knots of breeze. It was exactly what we needed to kick off our 2022 Lake Pleasant spring season!
We had (5) Santana 20’s, (6) Catalina 22’s, (2) Thistle’s and (7) PHRF Spin boats, with the Sport Boat Fleet on Race Committee. Oh, there’s another Hobie 33 on the lake. Tom Erickson was doing a shakedown cruise on #100, which hadn’t seen the water in 5 years. Looking good! Now Get that thing entered.
The racing was fantastic. Jeff Coulter in his Santana 20 had 3 bullets, but it was Martin and Cedric Lorch that wins the “Horizon Job” award for the day for their Race 2 domination. The Catalina Fleet welcomed back Steve Grothe with Old Yeller, who had a perfect bullet day. The Thistle’s continue to have close racing, and the PHRF Spin fleet had some nice swapping of places with Paul Liszewski getting Rolling in the Deep back into this fleet. Most notable racing was Nelson Passos’s Helion (Olson 30) really having a strong day with 3 Line Honor finishes and runner up for the Horizon Job trophy for Race 1.
The battle for the Spin Championship continues between Sean Brown’s Stargazer and Marshall Williamson’s Shazam. We’re not sure what kind of mind job Shazam was trying to put on Stargazer during the last 100 yards of Race 2 with a dual halyard release. Or maybe it’s a Blunder Bucket nomination? They seemed to gather it up nicely but we’ll just have to see how the handicap shakes out for that race.
It was hard to bring Saturday to a close. Nobody wanted to make their way back to the marina and R/C actually had to go to the rules to find out when the last gun could sound. Lots of Good vibes and smiles abound.
Sunday saw some changes. R/C was down to 4 crew and we had a stiff 16-18 knots of breeze. It turned out we had 2 R/C crew for every boat that checked in. Rolling in the Deep and Stargazer. With reefs in, they headed to Horse Island for Race 1, and a longer than normal north/south course for Race 2. No spins thrown up today as the skippers made prudent decisions taking into account the conditions and crew skill level.
Thanks for making it out! It was absolutely a “two thumbs up” weekend.
Click on the photos below:
