150 reasons I like DC in the fall - Rob 265, Sailwks 9.9

[DimitriMilovich]

One for each minute I sailed today - 2.5 hrs from 3:30-6:00! Yes, I know it was a Big Gear day, but if you're in the straps almost all the time, who cares! It was a beautiful just thermal day at DC. No upper air to support it, but I saw that there was some wind there yesterday in spite of the upper air east flow so figured today could only be better as the light winds aloft started to move northwest. There was even more sailing to be had than I had today -- Paul and Angie were out on the water an hour before me, due to excessive rigging dweebery on my part messing with my outhaul system and harness lines. Paul on a 9.0 I think (?). But even 8.0 rigs would've had fun for a good chunk of that time.

I sailed up to Sailboat Beach, but not the dam because I was enjoying the long tacks and I'd invariably come off a plane after my fat board turns. Lots of great reaches in the Rainbow Bay area, with steady feeds of whitecapped periods to make it exciting. Carl showed up in lower Rainbow Bay about 5:00 and promptly broke his uphaul. But "we don't need no stinkin' uphauls Christiansen" just pulled his 11.0 up by hand (!!!) Kinda like the polar opposite of a water start. Huh? How does he do that? But the windgod (goddess) rewarded his perserverance with even more filled in sections till about 6:00 when we came in. You could still have been planing till 6:30 at least with the big stuff. I can echo Sarah's remarks of how tired big gear gets ya, but DC was so steady and smooth, it wasn't too hard to stay out. Besides it's just beautiful up there and we had the lake pretty much to ourselves.

[Carl Christensen]

yeah, very solid when I arrived at 4. The range was probably 7.5 and up. Angie may have been on a 6.x cause she just makes it go anyway. Rob was making his 8.0/Hypersonic work. I rigged my basic formula set up and stomped onto a plane the minute I hit the water in boardshorts for the last time this season as it started to get cool when the afternoon sunshine started to thin. It's shorty time although the water temps aren't bad . Heck, I ain't no penguin but it's gotten cooler than it was before it snowed for 3 days. Go figure. The mountains sure look good though.

As Dimitri pointed out, my uphaul broke up towards Rainbow Bay. It was about a 3 day swim from Island Beach and on the far side of the lake so I thought that wasn't gonna happen. When the big sheet goes to water it doesn't always like to come back up so unless by some miracle it's already clear waterstarting can be a challenge. Plus I was getting a chill and kinda tired. I coulda prolly rigged something from the shredded remnant but wanted to consider other options. Dimitri saw what was going on and kindly offered some rope he had, very considerate. In the end I just got busy and uphauled the 12.5 by the mast so we could sail through the end of the session back to the beach. It seemed prudent to kinda head in because the 3 strike rule was looming: one-getting cool on a fall day with things not promising to get warmer and two-broken uphaul so falling would require up-a-hauling the big dog the hard way again. A sailor's got to know his limitations.

Overall a bery bery nice day, so solid, so smooth. It's always a pleasure to sail DC in the fall. Glad to see Dimitri on his killer Formula gear. Watch out, he's on the warpath now. Seems like he was adjusting quickly to his brand new stuff. Where was John D? Where was Sarah? Where was Jim? Jason said Marty and the Ogden Boyz were making it happen at PV too. It's looking like clockwork all week. Tuesday at DC looks good to me. Oh yeah, shorty and new uphaul will be in effect.