The weather was nearly postcard perfect, hard to go wrong sailing on aquamarine seas, sunny, with gentle breezes and 70 degree temperatures during the day. The fleet was treated to a typical cold front scenario where the incoming front pulls in SSW breezes and over the course of several days veers from NNW to SE. The fleet of 134 boats saw J/Boats having the largest total fleet of boats at the event- over one-third were J's ranging in size from the "classic" J/24 upwards through the range including J/29, J/80, J/105, J/109, J/122, J/125 and J/44. The races generally got off without a hitch due to the seasoned expert PROs like Ken Legler and others who stayed on top of the shifty, streaky breezes. Races started on time at 10:30 am and most fleets generally completed two races and were heading home by 2:00 pm.
On the Division 1 course, David Murphy's J/122 PUGWASH sailed well in IRC-B Class. At one point they had a solid lead but a few slow starts, missed windshifts and streaks rapidly jumbled the standings over the last two days. Nevertheless, David and crew managed to hang in there to get a podium finish- 3rd overall for the week. Their good fortune was counter-weighted by the roller coast rides seemingly experienced by Robin Team's J/122 TEAMWORK and Jim Bishop's beautifully repainted J/44 GOLD DIGGER. Both sailed well in a couple of races but had difficulty maintaining any consistency due to the very shifty, streaky wind conditions on Division 1 course- large black holes materialized frequently, swallowing up any unsuspecting boats and never let them go.
