Saturday was the Poplar Island Shorthanded Race...Instead of a lively romp on the Bay, it turned out to be yet another race to nowhere.
The Poplar Island Race remains one of my favorite races. There is a long or a short course option, both are triangular courses. The racer gets to decide whether to round the course clockwise or counterclockwise adding a strategic challenge to the sailing challenges.
Early in the week it looked like rain all day but lots of wind in the 10 to 15 knot range with higher gusts at times. As much as I hate being wet, I was really psyched to do this race.
But as the day approached, it looked like there would be a mid-day 'flat spot' near with only a couple knots of wind. I can deal with that. The race committee chose the short course just in case the flat spot lasted a while.
And sure enough on the way down to the start, there was the predicted steady 10 or so knot breeze. Cool! But just as the starting sequence counted down, so did the wind. By the start there was barely 3-4 knots of wind. The race committee managed to get the three starts (Spinnaker, non spinnaker, and multihull) off the line and out on the course. All of the racers chose to head counterclockwise and so the first leg was a close reach that was roughly 2 miles long.
Two and a half hours into the race, no one had rounded the first mark. Most of the distance covered had been the result of the outgoing tide, but now the tide had changed and the crab traps were starting to beat the slower boats. Even moving at .3 to .5 knots through the water, the GPS showed me doing 0.0 to 0.3 knots over the bottom. But at least it wasn't raining.
Mercifully, the race committee chose to put us out of our misery and abandon the race. On the way, home the rain began, which only further dampened my spirits.