So after getting a good nights sleep on the cheese, I woke up at 5:30 so that Larry and I could get to the Stockton Sailing Clubs opening day events which included a swap meet!!! Ahh yes, women love garage sales and antiquing men get weak in the knees at swap meets!
Well we showed up in Stockton thinking that the meet started at 7, but it actually starts at 8am, no problem, we got there early enough to get a look at the goodies while they were actually being unpacked. I happened to run into an old friend of mine Jack C. he was there as a vendor and had some great sails, and a cool little cruise and carry outboard, but alas nothing I needed. However I did hit the gold mine at other stalls. I started the morning off with a Life-sling for $30.00 something I've been desperately needing for a couple of years. Followed up with a hand held compass for $5, new Batten for my mainsail and Barlow winch handle for $15, but the piece de resistance was when Larry and I were leaving I found a Magna propane rail mount BBQ with all brackets and accessories, including two canisters of propane for $10! I seriously thought I should be looking for the police and "Cops" cameras as I loaded the last bit of booty into the back of the Suburban headed back to ACYC clubhouse for the first of the spring series races.

While we were waiting for the skippers meeting at the clubhouse the wind seemed to be picking up, so the race chairman decided on a longish race down to Marker 30 and back, turning at light 47, then back to the start finish between lights 40 & 41. Seemed like the minute we got out on the river the wind died, and we were fighting an outgoing tide. Larry decided to crew with me on the Cheddar Cheese instead of his Catalina 30 Irish Rose since we were both without crew that day. Once we hit the river we raised sails and began lazily tacking back and forth in the very light winds (4-6mph) the start time was 11:30 and about 11:15 we were pushed below the starting line, I knew from experience that in these conditions it is almost impossible to get back above the starting line in time so I had just enough time to fire up the outboard and motor far enough above the start finish line that when the starting horn went off we were actually drifting across the line ahead of the pack.
Unfortunately since every other boat was bigger than the cheese we soon were at the back of the pack again, but with quick jib change to my 150% sail we were able to at least keep up with everyone until the turn around at marker 30.
Let me explain how light the winds were, it took us about 2 hours to race to a spot that I had sailed to the day before in about 45 minutes, yup it was pretty much a drift boat race.
Once around the marker it was time to raise the spinnaker, unfortunately the spinny sheets got tangled with the jib sheets but in a few minutes we had the spinnaker up and poled out. Unlike the rest of the fleet we were flying an asymmetrical spinnaker, meaning that instead of the sail being loose footed, one point is attached to the bow, one to the mast and one to the pole. in the end this helped us I believe. the other 4 boats had thrown their kites up as well but in the extremely fluky and light winds were really having a problem within 5 minutes most of them had pulled their spinnakers down and were holding even with the current.
Larry and I however were actually making progress up river. Our secret you ask? Well I stood on the bow, actually holding the spinnaker pole out, constantly adjusting it for the winds while Larry manned the tiller this allowed us to make the best of every little gust of wind, unfortunately just as we were racing into 3rd place (at about 1 knot over ground) the race was called for lack of wind. Larry and I think that it was actually because the bigger boats, one being a tri, couldn't deal with being beaten by a little 25' Catalina (hah!)
After motoring back to the clubhouse, having a great BBQ and board meeting I finally headed home about 9pm, even with the lack of wind it turned out to be a great sailing weekend.

Happy Easter!