2006 Berkeley Midwinters

We had 6 U20's racing on Saturday for the 2nd Berkeley midwinters of
the season. The conditions were a big ? given the series of storm
fronts moving through Friday and Saturday.

As it turned out we had some of the best racing conditions I've seen
for midwinters. Sun - wind and just a enough of a rain spritz to know
it rained. Mark on Too Tuff being the hardcore type he is sailed solo
and spotted 12+ knots without the kite! Mark had a big smile on his
face while plaining into the marina at the end of the day.

Jim on Cloudnine with his fellow racing buddies got the start that we
on UFO thought about doing but got distracted and didn't do. Pin end
port tack, the line was goofy given the wind angles on the course.

Salsa started near us comittee boat end and flopped over early to
port and was looking good till they went to far right and found the
flood. We split the difference sailed left just short of Jim's line
tacked back then tacked again maybe 2/3rds the way up to get back in
out of the flood which is where we made ground on Salsa. Mojo was
double handed and rounded just inside us at the first rounding. It
was a knockdown drag out fight on the reach across to the next mark
between Mojo and UFO. At first we tried to climb over them then we
noticed we were sailing to high so we got seperation on Mojo and then
ducked their stern and drove lower and faster eeking out a slight
edge on Mojo by the time we reached the next mark. Jim and company on
Cloud Nine had the hyper speed going and were out of the picture in
1st place by then. Salsa experienced the classic outside gybe boobo
on the continous sheets during their first set and we caught them as
they re ran strings. But they were hot on our tail at the 1stleward
mark rounding.

We gained on Cloudnine a little on the down wind leg and Salsa was
closing on us a little. Up wind leg we took the right side of the
course thinking more wind, Jim and Mojo took the left - hard to say
who had the right call we seemed to end up back in about the same
spot on the down wind leg.

By now all the boats were seeing double digits on the knot meters and
the south bay storm chop had formed and served up some great wave
surfing. My crew Linda her 2nd time on UFO and Jim a newbie and
interested U20 shopper both had smiles ear to ear as we surfed UFO
all the way across the course. Jim couldn't believe how fast we
passed the lead Moore24. Linda was just happy the blue monster as she
calls our kite was behaving this time. All the U20 sailors had big
smiles by the time we got back to the Club. Freaking GREAT day!!!

John Wolf was out on BreakAway with his new spin sheets, we could see
him back there working up on us at times.

I found out that John raced on Sunday which by the way was slated to
have some pretty nasty conditions. John took a bullet and reported
pretty good sailing conditions so it sounds like a few us us missed
out on a 2nd day of good sailing, dispite the weather predictions.

Report by Trent Watkins

Ultimate 20 - Fleet 06 Time on Time: TCF=650 / (550 + PHRF)
Distance=8.8 nm Start: 11:55 Course: 1