EC12 SPRING BINNACLE

The WX forecasters predicted great sailing WX for the Spring Binnacle. Wee were not disappointed. The WX this Spring has been fairly gruesome. Probably better said it has been atrocious. So when the WX is great we revel when it is nice.

I,Joe Brohan, University Place, WA, arrived for skippers breakfast, at Johnnies at Fife, at about 8AM and I was greeted by Harry Lange, Enumclaw, WA. We arrived at the lake at about 9:15AM. Also there was Terry Harmer of Bellingham, WA. This was a 100+ mile trip for Terry one-way. Thanx for making the effort, Terry. He had just recently purchased his EC12 from back East and did not have a chance to sail it with many other EC12’s other than with Vic Childs in Anacortes, WA. Steve Young, Tacoma also showed up.

It was sunny with scattered clouds. The temps were in the mid 70’s with winds 4-6 mph and gusts to 8 mph coming from the N, S and W. They were just about all over the compass rose. The regatta started at about 10:30AM.

Terry observed that the winds were coming from every which way. I told Terry that’s why our venue is called Surprise Lake. Ha! Ha! It really makes it a challenge, Terry! A good example was when I was going on a full sail, wing on wing downwind run while other boats were on different stages of reaches and we were going to the same mark.!!! Figure that one out.

Harry placed the marks and later, after the regatta Harry and Steve rounded them up and put the gear away. Thanx, guys.

Murphy was present. I was not paying attention to my boat between heats and on two occasions and I ran into the dockl!!! Fortunately, nothing major came of either incident. Then there was the battery problem that Harry had. It sounded like, from what Harry said, he probably had a battery charger problem. As a result of this Harry was not able to complete one heat.

Since we had good sailing breezes, we were able to complete eleven heats. The regatta was over by 12:30PM. After all of the gear was put away we retired to Mr. A’s for lunch and figured the scoring. We all headed for home at about 2:30PM. All in all, it was a fun day of sailing.

Joe Brohan