Boats Alameda and Jalape帽o exchanged first-place finishes at the 麻豆社国产Yacht Club's fifth and six races of the Spring Race season on Sunday (June 1).Typical Howe Sound winds were inconsistent and shifty as eight crews took to rough waters in the afternoon. Strong winds can do wonders, said Ralph Chelswick, co-skipper of local boat Alameda. "We have great winds here in Squamish," he said. "I've raced a lot of places and the winds here are fabulous, just fabulous. Today was pretty typical and we have currents out there to make it interesting and a lot of floating logs. We had some big ones out there today that could sink a boat so we had to avoid them."Shenanigans skipper Bernie Agg said he sometimes takes on "pick-up crews" of people who want to try out sailing. Because of the tumultuous nature of the sport the learning curve is steep."Within the first 15 minutes they're expertsor else," he laughed. "But that's the best way to learn about sailing - get out there and do it. Today we kept everyone on board and I always say it's a successful race when there's no blood on deck and nobody got injured or black eyes or hit with a boom."The first course was an Olympic triangle and skippers did their best to ride the gusts so that they hit the start line at the horn, a feat that requires precise piloting, said Alameda skipper Chuck Spani. "If you're used to having a quick boat that accelerates rapidly, you get used to doing it one way, and if you have a boat like we do now, it takes a little longer to accelerate because there's more mast that you've got to get going," said Spani, who crossed the line near the back of the pack with his Ericson 33. "Timing is pretty critical."Despite the poor start, Spani quickly picked an outside line around the first corner and got a good lift while other boats went lower. Although Alameda traveled a slightly greater distance, the strong winds boosted it into first place past the Martin 242, Jalape帽o."We've aimed for it before," said Spani. "That was probably the best lift that we've ever got out of that corner."Spani and the rest of the Alameda crew held on for the remaining legs to win the first race with a time of 1:29:07 counting handicap.Meanwhile, Jalape帽o placed second at 1:32:03. The crew ran into sail problems after being overtaken by Alameda, said Chelswick who shares duties with his son Trevor."Further down the line we had a bad takedown on our spinnaker and we lost our halyard up the mast and therefore the second half of the first race, and the whole second race we didn't have a spinnaker so we were short one sail," he said.Still, that didn't stop Jalape帽o from winning the second shorter race, a makeup of a May 18 race, with a time of 30:24. It beat Alameda by almost three minutes (33:16).There are two more 麻豆社国产Yacht Club Spring Series races - one on Sunday (June 8) and the final on June 29. The main 麻豆社国产regatta, SOAR, takes place Aug. 8 to 10.
