San Diego 505 Fleet - TNT Reports

June 17.

A fun and unusual race was had last night at the weekly TNT Regatta on
Mission Bay.

Thursday's action included a larger than normal fleet of 4 boats on the

line.  The wind was also up to maybe 6kts with a puff of 7 I'd guess.

Another striking difference this week is that everyone was on the line

in plenty of time and no one was seen streaking in at the last minute

for the start! Racers included weekly regulars FIST and White Trash
(collectively known as Team Pugh) with guest appearances by Kitty Fever

(with new fleet member Bill McKinney crewing) and the irregular but

always amusing Team Tortuga Pinch Moxie.

A fine start by all four boats saw FIST leading fast but low all evening

and a constant battle at all roundings between various pairs of boats.

Kitty, Trash and TPM exchanged blows repeatedly at various roundings and

the runs were all very tight battles, even with TPM flying the Canadian

Chicken and TPM and Trash competing for most water in boat award.  The

last long beat of the 3 beat WL course saw TPM playing with the jib

leads in a hole, Kitty finding the breeze(and her vang) and Trash close

on FIST for a very tight 3 boat final weather rounding.  In the final

short beat to the finish Trash got the puff and FIST tactician elegantly

placing her in traffic gave Team White Trash(under new management) her

first TNT victory!!!

After Trash driver Tony took a slap on the wrist from RC for not signing

up, he took home the hardware and FIST Tactician Rick bought multiple

pitchers of beer in an attempt to atone for his errors.	Harry and his bird

(not Lil) were having none of it but drank the beer anyway.

Fairly lubricated from Rick's penance, the more hearty of the sailors (with

representatives from three of the four boats) then moved on to Rocky's to

tell more lies, drink more beers, eat burgers and eventually close the place

down, finishing out a great evening of sailing.

Final Results
USA 6571 White Trash
USA 7201 FIST
USA 7773 Kitty
USA 7458 TPM

Respectfully (and hung-over) submitted,

Geoff Nelson
Tortuga Pinch Moxie

The 505 crowd was a little smaller than usual last night. In fact,
Fist was the only boat that made it out. Harry and I teamed up to
carry the banner for fleet 3, duking it out in the dinghy handicap
fleet with two single handed Lidos and two single handed catamarans.

Since we were in handicap, I feel obligated to complain about our
rating. That's how it works, right? The others were all competing
with half their normal crew weight, yet their ratings were not adjusted
to reflect this obvious, unfair advantage...

Okay, let's move on. The start was tricky with such differences
in speed to contend with. We picked a spot to leeward of one of
the cats so we could pinch him off going upwind. The other one scooted
out to leeward of us and was never seen again. The two Lidos started
a bit behind. They kept up pretty well during the first beat, but
were specks on the horizon after the first spinnaker leg. So we
spent the rest of the race dodging lasers, snipes, and Capris with
no idea whatsoever of how we were doing against the competition.
We kept ourselves entertained by looking for puffs and occasionally
managing to hit one. A snipe tried a little fake move at the weather
mark layline that didn't work out very well for either boat. I think
they were laughing about it as we were, but you never know with snipers.

Highlights of the evening included Harry's spot-on observation that
the water gets pretty shallow as you round Bahia point on the third
leg. The centerboard immediately popped up with a growling, ginding
sound. Guess we'll be checking that paint job a little earlier this year...

Though small in number, we nevertheless defended the honor of Fleet
3 in the bar afterward. Lili arrived in time to provide reinforcements,
and we got serious about downing a picher of beer. Sometime during
the ensuing mayhem the announcer called out Harry's name, and when
he stumbled up to the front they congratulated him and forced into
his helpless grasp the largest coffee mug on planet earth. Apparently
all the whining had paid off and we had won the race. So like I
said before - a very fair test of sailing skill.

Bill Jenkins

May 20th.

Three boats, that appeared to be 5o5's, were on the line (if a-little late) for this evenings race. FIST, Kitty & White Trash. JB3 was doing some socal sailing in "Hot Bananas" (translation from Afrikaans), and entered the H16 as a "TNT 5o5" just incase we did not have the required three for a fleet. The bay racing PRO is one of the good guys and would have put up with this sillyness, but it was not needed. Thanks JB3 & thanks the the Capri 14 fleet for running a great race.

The wind was light, variable and the racing was tricky. I am not going into much details, as FIST (Fist?) carried the day (and picked up the beer tab!) Needless to say, it was great sailing. I have been sailing this class for about 4 years now, having tried out the missing TAZ (where is TAZ?) on the Asher Pier Race in 1999. What a great boat! Perfect for light air and flucky stuff, which one can get in TNT now and then.

Anyway..it seemed about time to give someone interested in the boat a ride for the evening. Mike Chapp was ready (another HP guy!). The boat was behaving, and Mike drove now and then - gybes, and some upwind work.

Nano technology was the topic in the boat. Where does the fleet find these types ;^) ? JB3, heading to UCSB is interested in this topic, as was Shaylor at USAFA - so I got an update from a UC grad. Anyway, we went over some of the variety of interesting stuff you can do to the sails in the class. While we were messing with these combinations....I noticed I forgot to attach RAM controls, so with a REALLY flat main and two blocked vang we crushed the H16 (but...they were NDS..).

After the race, we did the Tropies and discussed important topics - but I can't remember what they were.. except that the group was headed to an Italian pizza place in PB afterwards. I had to beg off, as our Mission Beach Boardwalk place - "Fleet 3's Rum Feast" venue was drying out after having had everything steamed cleaned. The patio was looking like a garage sale - right on the Boardwalk. If one does not take in things like a chair or couch they tend to end up on the beach. Utilized by surfers between sets and then either the Lazy-Boy floats out to sea or is pick up by the early morning beach grooming crew. So, I recovered our stuff and we are now ready for another party season!

The Friday Night plan is to head over to Geoffs, master organizer of last nights race..., and watch some sailing video. Hope someone brings "Master and Commander" & some Auzzie 18' bloopers as well.

2004 TNT Reports