Eleven Santana 20s struggled in fickle winds at this year’s Harvest Regatta.  Race one started out strong in a light westerly, but the wind shut off as the fleet neared the windward mark.  The next leg was a drifter, with an occasional breath of wind touching down on a few boats at a time.  Radost was closing in on Pizzazz approaching the gybe mark until our own personal set of chop came through the course.  It was a patch about 20 yards square, with no obvious origin other than an angry sea monster.  The chop hit us at an angle that sent the boat spinning out of control (there was less than one knot of breeze) until we were sailing directly backward toward the last mark.  It took several minutes to build up enough steerage to turn the boat back the other direction, but when we did, we caught a line of breeze and passed Pizzazz, who was stuck in a hole near the mark.  The first finish must have been a race committee’s nightmare as the Santana's, U20's and portsmouth boats all converged on the downwind finish simultaneously.  There must have been at least 15 boats overlapped and screaming on the finish line.  Billy Crutchfield on Tatoo went from 1^st to 5^th to 1^st in the last 100 feet. 

The boat end was highly favored in race two.  Just ask junior skipper Nick Genovese who snagged the best start in the fleet on Wing and a Prayer.  Some boats were able to lay the windward mark without tacking.  Wing rounded in first with H20 Boa close behind.  Radost came in on port and had to duck and tack into third.  Then the controversy began.  Apparently, the race committee had changed the course from a triangle-windward-leeward to windward-leeward at the preparatory signal.  Only a handful of boats saw the new course, so the fleet began to split. Boa sailed the correct course with Go Girl close behind.

Confusion ensued and protest flags flew until Boa crossed the finish line and the gun sounded.  Fleet 19 tapped the keg early to ensure that no one cared enough to file a protest, so dinner carried on.

Sunday had a promising start, and Radost appeared to be on fire.  We led the fleet until the last mark in races three and four.  In race three, Giddy Up took the inside at the leeward mark, just as the wind shut off.  We called the last leg poorly and lost four boats in an upwind drifter.  We also led the fleet to the final mark in race four, but this time Aquila slipped past us.  Positions appeared to trade back and forth in another upwind drifter, but they found a steady breeze farther to the East and took the gun.  As Radost crossed the line there was no trumpet fanfare as we had been called OCS.  Having started at the pin end we were unable to hear any hail.  A few boats to windward of us restarted, but weren’t clean as we had thought. 

Gordon and team H20 Boa won the regatta and the fleet championship for the second year running.  Leanne Bale-Fish and team Giddy Up took second.  Bill Crutchfield and team Tatoo took third.  Team Radost will try to redeem itself at Columbus Day Regatta in Newport, October 9^th & 10^th.  It sounds like there will be an exceptional turnout this year.

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