Century Club: Richard Turman

With the racing season over, we have to bring in the 7 race marks we use all season so they can be cleaned and repaired and kept from being run over.  Met at the dock at 10 and was picked up by a past Commodore and the current Commodore and spent the next 2 hours pulling the dirty barnacle-covered marks out of the water, and then pulling in their mud-covered anchors, which are now mostly concrete blocks.  Fun times!

Is always lovely.  No powerboats out, just geese and ducks and heron.

Took a little after 5 with a neighbor who'd never been on Lark before and we found nice 3-5 knots of breeze on Round Bay, allowing us to have a good hour before the wind died and we motored back.  Beautiful early evening sail!

Bittersweet evening, even though we had great wind -- 6-11 knots apparent -- consistently through the evening, and no rain.  Full crew of four, who had been racing together for most of September, and it showed.  Decent start but not great.  Wanted to start at the boat, but early, so went down the line and just made it inside the pin.  Pulled ahead and above boat to windward, and then moved out.  Tacked early since headed to shallow water; better wind out in the center of Round Bay.  Good raise on the spin on the way back, and decent speed the whole way.  Next upwind was twice as long, and fine until the wind hole near the windward mark.  Overstood to starboard beautifully, in that we caught a fortuitous breeze on that side and made it nicely up to the mark while other boats coming in on port were not so lucky.  Wind pooped out after we rounded and got the spin up.  Finally got some breeze and had a pretty good run all the way down to the finish, holding off a Johnson 18 and a Dehler 39 -- both of which in other circumstances would have passed us.  The race was long enough that the finish was by moonlight, and in this case that worked out since the moon was full.  Enjoyed Dark and Stormies on the way home, and talked about things we need to fix on the boat for next year.  Great race, even if it was the last of the Wednesdays!