RegattaPRO’s Jeff Zarwell reports on Saturday’s ‘exciting’ Winter One Design races:

We started out Saturday with a nice breeze of 6-8 knots from 035, steady, under beautiful skies and relatively warm temperatures. We were able to get all the fleets off without any delays.

After one and a half laps we were patting ourselves on the back for having put out a good course and being in the favor of the wind gods. We knew better than to do that because right at the end we had a shift to 065-070, which made for an interesting finish for most of the fleets. Worst of all though, Nothing Ventured, Melges 24 #248 and Practice Girl, Melges 24 #222, forgot the finish line was on the other side of the boat. Both would have had good finishes had they crossed the line correctly. After a few minutes they realized the error of their ways, unwound themselves and finished correctly.

By the time the last boats were finishing, the breeze had swung back to 035, so we started the J/120s on race two. Two-thirds up the first leg the wind shifted again to 070, then 090, 115,135, all the way down to 177. Then of course it shut down. I began driving around trying to find wind, any wind.

Several boats were hailing me and insisting the wind would be filling from the east, as all the weather reports had called for an easterly at 5-10 knots for the day. I had seen those reports too, but this didn't feel right. I saw some breeze over by Brooks Island and drove over there. It was 005. I put a mark in the water, then drove downwind from it. Damn, 065, that's just not going to work.

Don't forget that while all of this is going on, the J/120 fleet is trying desperately to round the leeward mark. Spinnakers going to the mark, spinnakers going away from the mark, they were trying anything and everything to get around it. I send Mark Mayer in the mark boat up to the weather mark to finish them, as they weren't getting much of a race and I wanted to end the pain for them.

So here I am still driving around, still getting calls from boats saying the wind is going to fill from the east and BYC was getting some. I'm sure the fleets thought I had lost my mind and was just driving around in a daze, but I really was trying to find some wind.

Then I saw it. I saw some breeze over by Southhampton Shoal. That made sense. Usually if the wind dies it’s a pretty good indication that it’s going to come back from a completely different direction. At least that's been my experience. This was a nice breeze from 270 at 8 knots or so.

I raced back to the mark I had thrown in at 005, grabbed it and raced back over to where I'd want a mark if the 270 held and tossed it in the water. I didn't even slow down when I put it in. It was 2:20 and the SIs said I couldn't fly a warning flag after 3:00. I drove down what seemed to be a good distance and there's the old weather mark from race 1 right in front of me. Could I use it for my pin? Nope. Off by 10 degrees. So I anchored where I wanted to be for the start, cast off my rode with a buoy attached, went to pick up one of the remnant marks from race 1, threw it in the water where I thought it might work and went pick up my anchor rode.

Mark had just completed finishing the J/120s (yes, it took that long for them to get up to the weather mark and finish), so he was able to fine-tune the line for me while I went into sequence. I had four fleets to start and the time was 2:37  Bang, bang, bang. We're rolling the starts off and everyone is behaving themselves, except for the Express 27s. They're piling up on my side and pushing the line. At the very last minute they all clear except for the boat closest to me, which is already completely over and beginning to go around me to clear. Thank you. One more bang and I got the J/24 fleet started. I look at my watch and it’s 3:00. Whew, we got them all off with five minutes to spare.

So there I am trying to catch my breath, looking up course to see if what I had literally thrown together was going to work. Much to my surprise at any given time half the boats were on port tack, half on starboard tack all the way up to the mark. On the downwind legs it was more 60/40 with the majority favoring the left side of the course, but hey was I going to argue? Not a chance.

The breeze held up for the remainder of the day, steady at 270 and 8-10 knos. “So much for the easterly,” I said.

The best part was that I had a new person onboard with me, who is interested in learning how to do all this race committee stuff. Her name is Ellie Cachette, and she’s very enthusiastic about learning race management. At the end of the day while motoring back she said, "Jeff, I never realized race management was so exciting! This is great!" So that's what you call a day like Saturday, “exciting”.

- Jeff Zarwell, National Race Officer

This series concludes on February 14. See www.regattapro.com/regattas.html for results and more.