Jeff Zarwell reports on RegattaPRO’s second month of Winter One Design racing:

Last Sunday's weather report was way off. This week EVERYONE said we'd have wind 15-25 mph from 300 moving to 280 late in the day with scattered showers and possible thunderstorms.  

In the pre-dawn hours Saturday I heard some high winds as forecast, so I was planning on rain, wind, thunder, all the forces of Mother Nature. Imagine my surprise when I got up at 6:00 and saw clear skies. Then there was the no wind part. I can deal with that - it's only 6:30 in the morning. Just a break in the breeze.

As I arrived at the venue (Berkeley Circle) at about 10:20, I was greeted with no breeze, zip, nada, nothing. Then with everyone drifting about the breeze came in. I drove to just west of "E" buoy, took some wind shots and it looked pretty good: 300-325. Okay I can give the meteorologist a few degrees. It was staying more at 300 than the 325, so I set the mark for 295 in anticipation of the leftie that was forecast in the afternoon.

J/120 fleet, looking good and go... Melges 24 fleet, looking good and go... J/105 fleet, looking...looking...damn, the line is too short, grrr. (I hadn't had the chance to physically count the number of 105s, so I just guessed and I was wrong. Count 'em next time Jeff, you know better.)

We got the line lengthened, which of course led to a wind shift, but it’s winter racing so off they went. The course was looking nice too. Express 27 fleet, looking good and go... J/24 fleet looking good and go... look up course, wind shift left, fetch to the mark. Yahoooo!

In race one of the day the wind was back and forth most of the race, but there were still tacks and jibes for most of the fleets.

Then the mark boat turns out to have contaminated fuel. Its sputtering like crazy and ultimately has to go into Berkeley Marina to dump the fuel and get some good stuff.  Of course as soon as he left the breeze swung to 230. I'm finishing boats and would like to send the first few fleets on race two, but the mark is still at 295, I'm finishing boats and the mark boat is at the marina.  

I'm waiting and waiting. To make matters worse, half the entire mass of boats is crossing in a gaggle of spinnakers and of course some decided to use spinnakers with different sail numbers just to make it interesting. They were so tight that I couldn't write down all the sail numbers fast enough, but fortunately I always carry several tape recorders and always record the finishes on tape, even the easy ones. You never know.

I'm going through all of that and at the same time wondering when my mark boat is going to return. Eventually he does, and it’s a good thing because I wore out the soles of my deck shoes pacing awaiting his return.

He's back as anxious for action as I am and grabs the starting pin, adjusting it for the 230 breeze. Then as soon as he grabs the leeward mark the wind starts moving back to the right and within 30 seconds is back to 295. Go figure.

We get the 120s and Melges off with square starts, but the wind goes big east during the 105 sequence. Boats are sailing by asking me if I see what the breeze is doing and all I can do is shake my head. Will Paxton is north of me pointing east and shaking his head no. What's a guy to do? I looked upwind and the upper 3/4s of the course looked decent, so I kept the sequence going. What the fleet didn't know was that I had the postponement flag ready and if the line was off by more than 90 degrees I was going to postpone. Just kidding, if it was going to be off by more than 30 I planned on postponing. Yeah 30 is way off, but with the bouncing around the wind was doing if I postponed for less than that, we wouldn't have started the last three fleets. I didn't like it, but didn't feel I had much choice.

So we got everyone off, the lower part squared up, the upper part went left, went left some more, then went big east - it wasn't going to stay in any one location, so I just let it ride. After all, that's midwinter racing.

Oh yeah, we never got the rain, never got the thunder, and for most of the day had lots of sunshine. It was funny though, all of the shifts came from the cloud(s) overhead except that there was no real pattern. Some clouds caused lefties and some caused righties. Each was a coin toss as to what it would do.

Merry Christmas.

- Jeff Zarwell, National Race Officer

The sail numbers have now been sorted out, and accurate results will be available soon at www.regattapro.com/regattas.html. You can register to race online too.