May 30th TESOD: You Never Know

After a flurry of e-mails, "I'm in" messages, followed by "I cannot make it", and e-mails from other SSA 505 owners, a few of us showed up at SSA to a glassy smooth calm.

Keith called in Yvette and they washed the bottom of the boat.

Ali had agreed to sail with ex I-14 and recently ex Etchells sailor, Joe Hidalgo, and after a few minutes of chatting and looking at the glassy smooth water, they decided to launch.

It wasn't clear they would be able to move, but somehow they drifted out to the starting area, and then Joe saw a puff to windward towards Greenbury Pt. A couple of minutes later, Ali had finished putting the trapeze harness on, and was out on the wire, with the boat nearly flying upwind in the flat water. A bunch of people came down to SSA and decided not to launch. Wow, were they wrong!

Joe and I sailed around for awhile and then reluctantly turned back as we noticed the sun going down. But TESOD racing was still going on, so we mixed it up with the TESOD fleet (and swam when the tiller extension came off the tiller) before heading in with the last of the daylight. As someone said, "it was a triathalon, sailing, bobbing and swimming."

Now Joe is interested in 505s.