Sailing Section - First Sail of the New Year January 3 2010 - by Barry Fox

We had a great turn out at our first sail of the year at Beaver Lake.
We had a sized crew of skippers over from Saltspring Island as well as a good
turnout from our side. I think there were a dozen boats on site at one time or
another.

Pretty decent #1 conditions all afternoon with only a couple of lulls and not
all that much shifting around.

There were boats in the water from around 11:30 or so until the best part of 4
o'clock. Lots of races, lots of winners. The front end of the fleet was shared
by quite a few different skippers and many different hull designs, once again
proving that nearly any decent boat that is tuned properly an contest for the
lead.

We did almost all 2 lap races and the first lap and first rounding generally had
a lot of the fleet pretty close together. So, that must mean that more of us are
getting our boats figured out. For the race winners, even at the end of the
races, there was not much of a pause while the rest of the fleet finished.

A nice long course, lots of boats, pretty reasonable temperatures for the first
of the year and pretty good winds. It doesn't get a lot better than that.

And on top of that, a lot of voluntary penalties taken without complaint.

A great day.

-Barry