With the hot temperatures sticking around for the Moore 24 Nationals, hosted Friday-Sunday by Richmond Yacht Club, some tempers flared, but all in all a good time was had.

Some of the Northwest contingent were expecting bigger winds. Ben and Jennifer Braden on Moore Uff Da from Ballard, WA, summed it up. “It’s a little lighter in the morning than we expected, but it fills in nicely.” Friday’s postponement and light winds were repeated on Saturday for the start of Race 4. But then the wind came in and those caught with the big jib still up struggled on the second windward leg. Race 5 saw all boats changing to #3 jibs and a nice 15-20 knots filling in for the rest of the day.

The course looked to be as square as possible, and the boats quickly dispersed with half going left, half going right and half up the middle. If you do the math you realize only one way can pay off. Vaughan Seifers on #155 Flying Tiger won Race 5 by going the right way. His lesson for the day? "Early on head for the ebb, try to stay in the wind, just do what you need to do. The last leg downwind is short, so you have to make the most of it. But we must’ve been lucky in the second race. I guess there was a hole or something on the left side."

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The third race on Saturday was a long course to Blackaller and back to Richmond in a strong flood. As it turns out, Moore Uff Da were Cityfront virgins. "We just followed Vaughan. We actually have never raced up the Cityfront, and it's fun short-tacking up past all the tourist spots. We were saying 'Oh look, on your left - Ghirardelli Chocolate, right on.’”

Once around the windward mark, everyone seemed to like the downhill ride, with the last boats heading for the beer before sunset. The Moore group is a diverse lot and the results show it, with the mid-pack spread out at the finish. One of the leaders of the back was Tom Condy on Sparrowhawk. “Even though we felt we had the boat trimmed perfectly and were up to speed for the conditions, we kept getting spit out of the back of the fleet. These are just such good sailors.” With the popularity of the Moore 24 ever so strong, it attracts some of the best, making for tight racing at the top and even tighter bonds in the class as a whole.

Be sure to check out our Moore 24 Nationals photo gallery and slideshow. For complete results, see http://moore24.org/results.html. Top finishers at the end of it all (in order) were Adios, Eight Ball, Gruntled, Flying Tiger and Kung Fu Sock Monkey. The Nationals are part of the Moore 24 Roadmaster Series, which wraps up back at RYC with the Great Pumpkin Regatta at the end of October.