Sarasota in March. What a great place! The water is an emerald green, The temperatures in the 70's and 80's. The winds were everything from light to overpowering. I got to sail with Don Perry from Sarasota on his Sunfish/Laser boat, Red Hot #14061. Don is a great skipper, a real pleasure to crew for.
The winds on Friday were moderate, maybe 10kts. We didn't have very good finishes, mostly due to some problems with Red Hot's mast pre bend. After the races on Friday, Don decided to reduce it, thinking that the boat was under powered.
Saturday, the winds were stronger, 15kts steady with gusts to 20kts. Our performance improved, and we took finishes in the first two that were higher than on Friday.
For our 3rd race on Saturday, There were 11 boats in our fleet and we had finished our first upwind leg, rounded the weather mark and set our spinnaker on starboard tack, with the wind on our starboard quarter. As we approached the halfway point on the leg, The spinnaker began to pull much harder through the sheet. Red Hot began to plane and roll side to side. Don called for me to ease the sheet, which I did, releasing the wind from the sail and decreasing the thrust on the boat. The winds were now a steady 20kts, and the gust didn't stop. I tried to refill the spinnaker, but the boat was still overpowered. Don called to douse the spinnaker. I released the sheet again and the gust increased by half, then shifted to the port side of the boat. The boat yawed hard to port and rolled. I tried to climb up to the weather rail as the gunwale went under the water, but I was too late. the boat went over and I was thrown into the water. I came up out of the water and made eye contact with Don. Beyond him I saw four Day Sailers floating on their sides, their centerboards extending into the air. I went to the centerboard handle and pushed it down, extending our centerboard. We climbed on the hull after releasing all our running rigging, and stood on the centerboard, but the boat wouldn't right. A powerboat came near and we tied a line to our chainplate. Slowly, they pulled the boat and it began to right. After untying the tow line, we got back in and bailed her out. There wasn't much to bail, actually. The self bailer took care of it. Luckily, The only damage was to the masthead wind indicator, which was apparently knocked off when the masthead came to rest on the sea bed. We thought that was why the boat wouldn't right until it was pulled out of the sand by the powerboat. 8 of the 11 boats went over in that wind blast according to the Race Committee. Those that did not go over had some small amount of centerboard down and had jibed to port before the blast hit.
Since we had outside help, we couldn't finish that race. But we continued to race that day. In one of the best comebacks I've been a part of in my sailing career, we won the next race, with a fleet of eight boats. Our start was good, but Don saw the windshift early and took it well before anyone else. That put us ahead at the first mark rounding and we stretched it out. Bob Lemaire broke out of the pack behind us and took second that race.
Of the boats that capcized, the ones that continued were the newer boats that had improved flotation. I gained a lot of respect for the Sunfish Laser boats self rescuing capabilities. I also learned that the McLaughlin boats have larger seat tanks than the O'Days, so they have less water inside when they are righted.
We raced again on Sunday, completing the regatta with 12 races total. Winds were light at the start and built as the day continued. The last race Don made a great tacticl move. the boat htta was nearest to us in the standings came up on our weather quarter as we approached the finish line. Don luffed the,m up oto head to wind, and the other boat tacked away. But in doing so made contact. So he had to do a penalty turn and we finished ahead of him.
I think we came in perhaps 4th or 5th overall, I had to leave before they awarded trophies to make my flight out. Hopefully, I'll get some scores from the internet sometime soon.
Bob Lemaire and his son Mark won the regatta, they sailed a great series. I think Del Foster from North Carolina took second. Bob had a new suit of sails from Jotz, and they seemed to answer well.
I'm headed to Sarasota, Florida this afternoon to the Midwinter regatta. Why it's called that when it's held a few days before the Vernal equinox, I don't know. Anyway, this is my first time to Sarasota and I'm looking forward to it. I'll be crewing for a change, so I hope I don't embarrass myself too much. I'll post a report when I get back.
Walter Cunningham, who was a crew member on thge Apollo 7 mission wrote an excellent editorial in the Houston Chronicle today.
"Will an organization, unwilling to accept the risk of flying a truly great spacecraft in familiar Earth orbits, ever be willing to accept the inherent risks of landing humans on the moon, let alone sending them to Mars? Is NASA, today, a reflection of society's growing desire for a risk-free existence? With that attitude about risk, we would never have gotten to the moon and become pre-eminent in human space flight. NASA was founded to explore the unknown, evaluate the risks versus gains, and then take calculated risks to move our society forward.
Sadly, I think Mr. Cunningham is right. The United States would never have landed on the moon in 1969 if the attitude held by many in this country today was prevalent then.
The Orlando Sentinel printed a story on the 8th saying that the President's space plan is adrift on Capitol Hill. It appears that there is no leadership in Congress to push the plan. The president is now busy making his bid for reelection, so it has necessarily fallen by the wayside. If Bush wins reelection, some impetus for pursuing the plan may come forth. If John Kerry wins, I think the plan would be scrapped given that it would be viewed as Bush's plan. This has happened a lot in my career in the space program. It happened with Reagan's plan for the space station, and the station plan changed markedly with the subsequent administrations. Given the current polls, and that congress is always slow to act, I don't think we will see much in the way of budget this year.
The one thing about the Space program you can count on is that no matter what one President proposes, the fact is that that plan will change a lot. Given the history of the space program it's not likely that it will change for the better.
We had a vehicle, the Space Shuttle, that was supposed to make access to space routine. It only partially succeeded. We were supposed to have a space station that was to be a base for interplanetary missions, for serviing on-orbit satellites, for research. We now only have a station that does research into microgravity and life sciences. So now we are going to replace the shuttle with a crew exploration vehicle that will eventually travel to the moon and mars. Given the lackluster response by Congress, I expect what we will get will be very, very different.