Photo by Stephanie Wagner (I think)

Our “Fabulous Thursdays” have been shaping up to be “unusual Thursdays” so far this season.  Last week after our adventures with a thunderstorm, I was looking forward to a more mellow evening.  It wasn’t in the cards.  At 4:15pm a wild storm blasted across the river with Gale force winds and pelting rain, and seemed to park itself right over NERYC for about 30 minutes.  The term “wild” barely describes it.  At least the bird crap got power-washed off our boats.  After the storm passed, the sun came out, and things became very still, and it appeared like we were going to have no wind at all for sailboat racing.

And then it started.  When the wind first started to build, those of us ashore were happy – we weren’t going to have a frustrating evening of drifting.  A bit more, and we were feeling “gee, it looks like we’re going to have fun”.  The Roecker’s even headed out early to enjoy the fresh breeze.  However, it just kept building, and by the time the rest of us headed out, the wind was above 20 Knots and the river covered in white caps.  I’m not sure where the wind topped out, because we decided it was just a little too much for us to handle when we saw Valiant Tri blast by us like a rocket on what appeared to be just one of their hulls.  6 boats decided to stay in the game and had quite a wild ride around the course.  So, congratulations to the skippers and crews of Morning Star, Whimsey, Pegehiwime, Valiant Tri, Morphos, and Windseeker for hanging in there and finishing the race unscathed.  I’ll publish official results next week.

Hopefully the weather gods will be a little less extreme next Thursday.