October SCRA regatta

October 12, 2003

Great sailing this last Sunday.  The sun was out all day and we had "wire

reaching" most of the day on the downwind legs!  For those of you new to

this term, it means that the boat can power up with all three sails, and

efficently get to the leeward mark by gybing back and forth down the course.

As usual the SCRA ran good races.  Kitty and Fever made it out & we did four

races, until the need of refreshments, football and baseball forced us in.

Race #1: Kitty, Fever

Race #2: Fever, Kitty

Race #3: Kitty, Fever

Race #4: Kitty, Fever

One of the many highlights of the racing was Fever (Rick Denny and Bill McKinney)

forcing Kitty to take the RC boat to weather on the line, then keeping Kitty over

and running her off the line completely!

John3 and I were laughing so hard, that we must have distracted Fever, because

after forcing us at least 1 boat length to weather, Fever nearly capsized to weather.

Once Rick and Bill got use to each other: getting over the mechanical issues of

running the boat, the racing was close.  Picking the right line downwind was great

stuff, full power wire reaches.  Denny and McKinney often picked better lines than

Kitty, and we usually had to try to make it up on the beats.

After racing and coming in a little early, Bill and I spotted the best seats at the

bar, with one TV on the football game and one on the Cubs/Fish game.  The

Chargers had their best game yet this season, a bye week!

John Billings

US 7773 "The Kitty"