North Cove Regatta Puts Sailors in a Foggy State of Mind By Mark Kondracky ECSS

Sailors in Four fleets test their skills at North Cove's ECSA regatta.  A moderate south east wind brought fog making the race a navigator's dream or nightmare.  "Everyone who even completed the course was a winner" announced Manfred Noack, one of the race organizers.  The course started at the usual place, off of the Saybrook breakwater.  Racers were serenaded from a bugle by Ed Birch on Celebration playing "show me the way to go home."  I was sailing aboard Maximus, a Mumm 36.  We arrived at the starting line with only minutes before our sequence because two of our crew were late with a flat tire.  Thank you Sue and Snow Bird for the course.  The first leg was a close reach out to the red and green can marking the East end of the shoal. Next, after a great set we headed out to the red and white whistle off of Cornfield Point, then back to the first mark and a spinnaker run home.  We had a great two legs holding off Hot Flash until late on the second leg.  We ran into trouble at the end of the third leg.  We got within 0.03 nautical miles from the nun, but couldn't see it because of the fog.  So we lost some time when we had to double back.  That seemed to be the order of the day as many boats reported having to hunt for marks.  We found the mark and set the chute for the finish line.  My sister was aboard Arabesque, a Brit Chance custom in Class 3. She reported that the first leg was fine, a bit hard to find the mark! They had a great set and were working their way to the next mark. The wind was building and they weren't sure which head sail to go to next. We were seeing the class behind us coming out of the fog and we were trying to identify them, she reported. It was difficult plus with motor boat traffic and the concern with the ferry's All boats sound big when you can't see them. They put up their head sail when Snowbird did and followed them around the mark. At the next mark they put up the bright yellow spinnaker, also known as the fog spinnaker! We wanted to make sure the committee boat saw us. We crossed the line after a few gybes and got the gun she said.      Boats from Duck Island had a great day winning three of the four classes.  Celebration, sailed by Ed Birch (EYC) won class one.  The race was sponsored by Kappa Sails, and West Marine

Class one (canvas) 1.  Celebration 2.  Irish Lady 3.  Christina (2 boats DNS)

Class two (canvas) 1.  Hornet 2.  Surrender 3.  Prism 4.  Rainbow 5.  Free Spirit

Class three 1.  Arabesque 2.  Petrel 3.  Nunnehi 4   Cold Duck 5.  DNF

Class four 1.  Snow Bird 2.  Hot Flash 3.  Maximus 4.  Meltemi