The forecast for last Wednesday was 15 knots gusting to 20 out of the west clocking north during the evening. So it was good that we had Graham back for his second race while in Toronto on holiday to help Steve on the winches. The rest of the crew consisted of Kathleen and Pam on the bow, Susan on the main, and yours truly steering.

When we went out it looked like the wind wasn't quite up to the forecast averaging about 12 knots and gusting to 15 so we went with the heavy #1 which worked well except to the occasional gust which got Skipper Ron a bit wet and leeward side. Veloche couldn't make it out due to another personal commitment.

The course was a 4x buoys to starboard triangle N,W,E with the start near the eastern gap, a short buck up to Redpath, a long close reach toward Centre Island, then a long broad reach back. But the wind wasn't clocking north as forecast, it swung to the west during the start sequence creating a VERY favoured pin end with a buck consisting of a short starboard tack and a long port tack.. Alpha, Blue Streak and Circe decided to risk a pin end port tack start which we almost cleanly got away with. Alpha got to weather of us and Blue Streak to leeward and Abra came in on starboard. I think Alpha managed to clear Abra (but may have had to tack) but both Circe and BS had to duck her. BS and Circe stayed on port to the layline and rounded behind the big blue boat and the yellow boat but with a good lead on the smaller blue boat, Alpha.

We had a great sail doing the full 4X around staying in that order with some battles with Stars and boats in other divisions but as the evening went on the wind grew lighter and started to drop to 3 or 4 knots at times on the last two long legs. This gave the boats ahead a significant time advantage as we had to suffer more time in the slower light air than they did. In the end BS won it (as usual) but Abra got us by 11 seconds on corrected time so Circe got third with Alpha fourth.

But it was a great night for a sail and the Circe crew was their near flawless self. Skipper Ron had earlier in the evening awarded the grinders with a new quick release winch handle but half way through the race the older quick release handle was obviously jealous and decided to leap out of Graham's hands and escape to the bottom of Toronto Bay. But Graham has generously replaced it with another. Thank you Graham.

Graham heads back to Vancouver today but Mike should be back (right Mike?). Susan is away though.

What about the rest of the crew? Who's up for more abuse this Wednesday/

Skipper Ron