RYC Report

Despite cloudy and sometimes rainy weather, nine captains and their crew enjoyed great sailing conditions on Saturday for the Rendezvous Yacht Club’s Mermaid Rock Race.

With north winds of 8-15 miles per hour, it was a challenging course from Grindstone Island around Mermaid Rock and back. Colin Hewitt along with Sue Karsnia and Theresa MacRory won the race aboard the Catalina 25 known as “Ariba”.

The sailors started north of Grindstone Island and with the wind out of the north, headed upwind through Pine Narrows, then up between Rest and Sandpoint Islands.

Sailboats cannot go directly into the wind, so when the course is set to go that direction the boats “tack” back and forth navigating their boats on a zig zag course. Just west of Water Narrows, the sailors turned west to go out past the Mermaid Rock. With the wind channeling between the islands, it was a tacking battle to get through the narrows and out past Copenhagen Island.

From Copenhagen, the sailors turned southwest with instructions to go around Eight Mile Island before heading south though American Narrows. As they rounded Eight Mile, conditions were good for a downwind run to finish at the start line by Grindstone. For this last leg, several of the boats put up spinnakers, the largest sails on the boat which are usually multicolored. Second place went to Roger Ysen, captain of the J24 “In Tune”. Placing third was Quinn McCarthy aboard an S2 7.9, “Surprise”. Peter Engberg ran the committee boat.

On July 18 the club started the Fall Series for their Wednesday night races. Four boats competed in strong west winds with gusts over 30 mph. Ron Bowman set up a windward/leeward course and called for the sailors to complete 7 legs. Peter Engberg captained “Wing ‘In It” to first place for the A fleet while Bob Algie aboard the C&C 24, “Imagine” won top honors for the B fleet. Placing second was McCarthy/”Surprise” and Jas Spencer/”Beagle” in A/B fleet, respectively.

For more information about the club, log onto www.rycweb.org or contact Diane McCarthy at 283-1060.