scott.projectsomewhere

The 18 footer season is over for the year. Finally. For some reason this one seemed to drag on for a long time, probably something to do with the lack of wind in the last 2 or 3 months.

It’s as if our 2nd rigs have been rotting on the trailers for ever.

Yesterday ‘was’ going to be more of the same, til the Nor-Easter decided to blow and gave us a nice top end big rig race to finish things off.

Unfortunately I got a bit excited on the tack line on the first kite set and put us in the piss. Or maybe the halyard went up too slow, but it’s not as if I’m going to say that. Anyway, after our time-consuming capsize and recovery we came back through the field slowly and finished 4th.

But since it’s all over, there’s a sunday-shaped gaping hole in the week. It used to be a given that I’d be racing the 18, but it’s time to re-adjust.

Luckily I have a new boat coming to keep me occupied. It apparently left the factory on Friday, so I will have it sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

I think I’ve got about 14 weekends before the boat needs to be boxed up and sent off to the Gorge, so those spare Sundays might be put to good use after all.

At this point, it looks like I’m leaving the defense of my state title (unfortunately the only one I managed to take last year) to the last minute. The stars will have to align just right to make it all come together, but stranger things have happened. A couple of years ago I picked up my Bladerider the day before the regatta, and had a disaster. Now there’s been plenty of water under the bridge since then so things might be different.

Since handing my boat over about a month ago, I’ve only been mothing a couple of times, for a couple of minutes each. Not exactly race ready – though that’s still more than John, who’s boat is still sitting in a box in the boat yard.

A boat will arrive for me around Wednesday. Not that I’m counting the days or anything.

In the meantime the boatpark is rapidly filling up, with John’s aforementioned boat returning last week, two new Bladerider RXs arriving later today, and Tacka’s VRX soon returning from it’s r&r at Marty’s workshop. The club is now going to struggle to find room to store the 14 boats in it’s 8 slots.

And we’ll be doing our best to push a few boats more into the non-existant storage spaces, with an upcoming demo day on Tuesday the 14th April at the CHS regatta in Belmont. We’re planning a little ambush marketing for the couple of hundred impressionable high-school kids competing. Test sails are limited, so if you want to line up a demo, fill in the form. If the weather is good, Nathan and I will blast around the track during the race, and the FXs will do the work during the demos.

Anyone care to place their tips for the states next weekend then?