M15 "Spring" Series Regatta Wrap-up
The newly formed Melges 15 Fleet has arrived at SSA!
11 boats made it to our inaugural mid-june event the “Spring” series with extremely challenging but fun conditions. Coming from the west at 8-12 kts in the lulls and 18-24 kts in some of the bigger gusts. Given these conditions the race committee chose to sail in area-C along Bembe Beach. We certainly had more than enough wind to get ripping downwind in the bigger puffs and a nice ebb-tide keeping things flat made the event extremely fun and successful.
However, the inland course did pose big challenges as well. The lulls were big enough that tuning to the lulls was the play (as usual) because the disparity between pressure-and-lull was big! Almost as big as the 40-60 degree shifts which will always make everyone's head spin. That said, I could not have asked for better conditions for our first regatta! Looking at the scores it's clear that everyone had their own peaks and valleys.
Big shout out to the hotly contested Husband-and-Wife division won by Britton and Heather Steele, however, Sean & Renee Harr were the only married couple not to do a capsize recovery drill. All couples remained intact at the end of day! Shout out to another couple, Madeline and Mike who had a run away win!
Thank you to everyone who attended, I would be remiss if I didn’t shout out the real MVPs of the day, RC volunteers: Dina Kowalyshyn, JR Maxwell, Charlie Kowalyshyn, Mike Udell, Ian Mattonen, and Sandy Westphal. They had to set it in the middle of huge swings and send us off for four awesome races with a skinny-skinny race committee.
Cannot wait for the next event on July 15-16 Join us for the summer series. Registration is open and we are going to have a party! Details coming soon.
