SSA Snipe “Fall” Series

This weekend was the Snipe “Fall” series. Hardly fall as it was still hot as blazes! We were away Saturday, but as I understand it the breeze kinda filled at about 2 pm and there were two races in light breeze with 8 boats out. The forecast for Sunday was much better as there was a southerly gradient flow preceding tropical story Isaias. With that southerly gradient and the heat, we FINALLY had the quintessential Chesapeake seabreeze. Thomas Point had a steady 10-15 with gusts near 20 at race time, so Barbara Vosbury took us to Bembe Beach as it is a little more protected. We got 4 really nice W/L twice around races in and this was perhaps the best sailing of the summer so far. Breeze was 8-15 with 20 degree shifts and a little lump. Definitely a gear changing kind of day. As is often the case, the cast of characters changed a little from Saturday to Sunday (especially with the AYC distance race), but with the addition of the Plines and AJ Reiter/Belle Strachan sailing Christian Filter’s boat, we had 7 boats on Sunday. The racing at the front was very tight with the lead changing depending on who hit the shifts best. Everyone was hiking but even in the puffs, it was never overpowering and this made for really fun sailing.

Coming up this next weekend (August 8-9) is the Women’s Clinic (Sat) and Chesapeake Women’s Challenge (Sun), followed by a “COSOD” on August 15. The next Snipe event is the Frigid Digit on October 3-4, but we may sneak some other club racing in September and October since virtually all of the travel events have been canceled.

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