2016 Palm Beach Gardens Valentine's
Regatta Report The 16th Valentine's Regatta hosted 22 skippers from around the country. We enjoyed having our “snow-birds” sailing with us at Lake Catherine in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. PBGMYS has a tradition of a welcoming party on Friday night, and Chester and Libby outdid themselves again with Ham, Turkey, Pulled pork BBQ, salads and more food and libations than could be consumed in 2 nights. The skippers' meeting was at 0900. Wind was northerly, 10 knots, under sunny skies and 60’s temps, lots of skippers in shorts and sandals. Ann Gelina (with Ed’s invaluable help), Kelli Greer, and others laid out a wonderful breakfast spread. George Balaschak did a super job getting us all organized with all the “stuff and a multitude of things that must be done. Using the national seeding list, we skipped seeding races and started the first “B” heat under the P/R system-advancing the top 4 to “A” fleet so 13 boats sailed each heat. Our lake is quite long in N-S orientation and this presented many opportunities for passing as the wind shifted, lulled, puffed, and velocity shifted. Saturday's lunch included Jon Luscomb’s famous “No Bull Chili”, hot dogs and pizza. Sunday was predicted to be ugly with 25+ knots and rain. NOT! We had 10-12 NE allowing long upwind (150 meters) legs which permitted of both strategy and tactical decisions for the skippers: meaning passing lanes with many lead changes. I must comment on the very gentlemanly (and Liz) racing. All fouls were settled on the race course-NO protest committee hearings. Lots of rounding’s with 4-5 abreast cleanly (not all I’ll grant you) but overall very impressive. We completed 14 races (28 heats) and the results reflect some great sailing by some really splendid skippers. Alan Perkins is back sailing at his usual best with a spectacular win with a score of 19 for 14 races. Thanks to Karen Luscomb, John Biles, Gail Ring and Michelle Wright for not letting a fleet start until ALL were accounted for. Race Committee: RD Chris Wright; ARD Doc Greer. Final Results
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