Back to Texas Proa Championships 2009 Race Report

We had announced the Texas Proa Championships here.  The original date was Oct 2, but that was a conflict for Laurent, so we fumbled around for a bit and came up with Sept 26.  I had to be in Lake Jackson until 7 pm due to a prior obligation, so I was packed and ready to go and left as soon as I was finished.  My sailing buddy Pete had come to the '08 TPC and was planning to come to this one, but got a big load of work in and decided he couldn't make it.  The fact that the forecast was for 0-2 mph may have been a contributing factor.  I don't blame him.  Todd, a west coast proa_file member, had planned to drive all the way to Texas for the event (!!), but called me Thursday and said he was cancelling too, he just hadn't got his trailer done in time.  We had a nice talk on the phone about boats, I'm really sorry he couldn't come.

So the attendees would be Laurent, me, John and Skip, just as last year.  Woo hoo!  Here we go!

I got to the park about midnight Friday night.  Laurent had set up camp, we had a beer and chatted and then went to bed.  I slept on my tramp on the boat.  I don't really mind sleeping out in the open even when the bugs are bad, I sleep with a thing of bug spray next to me and wake up a few times a night to re-apply.  Nice to be outside.

Saturday dawned warm and still.  Really, really still.  No wind at all.   On the boat's tramp I woke up to hundreds of huge dragonflies zooming around at dawn eating bugs.  I watched them for ten minutes, then they all fled, and the swifts showed up and took over.  Very peaceful.  Then the seven million boy scouts and Indian Princesses across the campsite woke up.  Not so peaceful.  I got up and had breakfast.

We went to the ramp and launched, but put off the race until noon, then put it off entirely.  John was not feeling at all well, so he declined to launch.  Too bad, and I hope he's feeling better.  He had a formidable looking thing to control his new circular sail, I look forward to seeing it in action.

It was very calm.  Very, very calm.  This was about as much wind as we had all day:

Apparently in 1 mph of wind, having a bit more sail area is better than having a higher aspect ratio.  The weekend was full of surprises like this.

Usually it was more like this:

We tried to sail around an island on the other side of the lake, but it turned out to not be so much an island as not an island.  Then the wind died completely, mirror calm and hot.  I was baking, so I got into the water and floated under the boat in the shade of the tramp for a while.  The water was nice and cool, very refreshing.  Eventually we understood that the wind was not coming back, and we paddled a couple of miles back to the beach.  I had been inspired by proa_file posts showing standing gondoliers, so I had brought a 6' long double paddle and paddled standing up.  Very effective, I'm going to make a long standing paddle to use from now on.

We gave up on sailing for the day.  Skip went off to find his son and granddaughter, who were in the park with another group, John went home, and Laurent and I went to find barbecue.  Very fine barbecue was found, so I at least was in a somewhat better mood.

But still, very discouraging.  We were talking about packing it in.  Laurent's family was supposed to come out for a day of sailing rides and kayak paddling on Sunday, but it wouldn't be much fun for them either in no wind at all.  I rather glumly called Pete to get a weather report for Sunday, thinking he would tell me it was still saying 0-2 and we would likely pack it in for the weekend.

Not 0-2!  5-7!  Wow!   I have to say, after a day of real, genuine lengthy bursts of no wind at all glassy calms, a day of sustained 5-7 mph sounded like heaven.  We were all bolstered by the news.  In fact, we felt so good we did a capsize test, to see how the righting pole Laurent had made for his boat would work:

photo by Skip Johnson

It works, but requres a certain amount of acrobatics.  And perhaps some nonskid.

We went to bed hopeful for wind.  I slept on the boat on the beach.  The forecast was for 4 mph at 7 am.  I woke up at 5 am and it was dead calm, and I had unkind thoughts about weather forecasters.  But at 7 I heard a noise; a sail flapping!  A sloop was on the beach next to me, pulled up with main and jib left up.  They flapped!  Then again!  Woo Hoo!  Wind!  Sailing!

But first, coffee.  On to TPC 2009 p2.