I’ve known for weeks that Solaris wouldn’t be sailing on July 12th. With 10 kids and boats in Baltimore for a Junior Regatta, getting packed up and returning to NERYC in time to sail just wasn’t going to happen, so July 12th would be a throw-out night.

However, by some miracle, there wasn’t any traffic leaving Baltimore yesterday, and it began to look like we could actually roll into North East by 5:30pm. So my first call was to Sharlene Wilkins who was just wrapping up the week’s camp activities to see if there was any wind. No sense in hurrying to just sit and broil. There was a building breeze! Call 2 was to Stephanie – radios, GPS timer and other essential items were all at home, not on the boat. Then there was a matter of crew. I didn’t have any because we hadn’t planned to sail. Rachel said she would go, but only if she got to skipper ( I guess 2 days of Laser racing wasn’t enough for her). Sweet was with us, and was easily bribed with the promise of chicken fingers and fries after the race. (Skylor is an Opti sailor, and is frequently concerned there won’t be enough racing on any given day, so I figured he would be an easy recruit).

So, things were looking unexpectedly up, and we arrived at NERYC right on time as did 5 other groups of sailors, and we all enjoyed the best Thursday night we’ve had this season. The breeze was nice and stayed up for the duration of the race, the temperature and humidity were low (for July), and the bugs seemed to be on vacation.

Things started right on time, although there was quite a bit of excitement on Morning Star about a 90 seconds before the start when their headsail came crashing down on the deck due to a broken halyard . We all were amazed they didn’t miss a beat and recovered almost instantly, putting it back up using the Spinnaker halyard, and then had great start. Sydney made her first trip ever up the mast when things were all over to retrieve the halyard and entertain the diners on the patio, and reported “That was SO cool”.

And once again, that strange phenomenon of NERYC being the center of the universe played out once more. Van Downing showed up looking to crew, and sailed with Wilson King and his friend on Victoria. Van and Wilson had never met until last night, and discovered that Van and Wilson’s wife Vicky are childhood friends.