The Rowing Club is running their Polar Bear winter series every second Sunday, alternating with WVYC’s Snowflake series like usual. Registration and race documents are on their site at: https://vrcracing.ca/polarbear/
The first race is already in the can, and the registration list is quite healthy.
The forecast for Sunday is looking all over the place, think what we get will depend on when this SE front blows through.
Environment Canada Extended Forecast:
Strait of Georgia.
Saturday…Wind southeast 20 to 30 knots increasing to southeast 30 to 40 in the afternoon.
Sunday…Wind southeast 30 to 40 knots diminishing to variable 5 to15.
Monday…Wind variable 5 to 15 knots.
Howe Sound.
Saturday…Wind variable 5 to 15 knots.
Sunday…Wind variable 5 to 15 knots.
Monday…Wind variable 5 to 15 knots.
GFS and ECMWF forecasts show 8-13kts in English Bay on Sunday, whereas MeteoBlue is showing far less. Personally, I am hoping for GFS to be right, as 8 kts in flat water with light rain seems better than the other options.
8-13 kts and flat seas would be perfect!
We want to “test” the new A4 on Spitfire, bring on the breeze
Given the forecast I think we’d all take 8-13 and flat water…
That’s true, bring on the 20 kts, LOL!
Well, it wasn’t 20 knots, but 8-12 in flat water is pretty good for English Bay.
I never thought the Race Committee would do a downwind start so early in the season, but it was a fun surprise.
That was a surprise, but we nailed it, so we loved it!!
You murdered that start = Well done!!! 
Interesting if not fun at times day on the bay yesterday. Certainly tough to score well as the scratch boat when we park for as long as we all did in race 2.
In case this is read by rc’s - the course for race 2 was fine but given the overall flukiness of the day - running the race with a s/f gate x 2 would make it easy to shorten if needed…because I’m pretty sure the shorten course flag was not up prior to Kiss rounding kits barge…
There have been issues with ‘twice around’ Polar Bear courses; I might have suggested that we go “B F X F B” or “B X F B”. One problem with this is that the SIs do not contain the start line as a usable gate, so using ‘F’ (separate start finish with two blue pins) may be a (redressable) problem.
I would strongly suggest that the race committee define the start line as a gate (perhaps letter ‘S’) if they intend to run races in the kinds of conditions we saw yesterday.
All of that being said, the conditions were challenging, and that ‘steady’ North wind did not last long.
Certainly anyone who felt disadvantaged by that finish would easily win a request for redress and have the 2nd race chucked out. It was going to be a late day by the time we got around though!
It would be nice if we could get one wind direction for the whole day, I wonder if it was better west of Jericho while that north / south thing was happening?
Personally I hate sailing around the QC or whatever the mark is that is just off of Stanley park - it’s a vacuum that is always flukey and mixed with a lot of current.
So moving the course away from there would suit me just fine.
I agree, I hate QC. At the same time I much prefer rounding a mark than rounding a freighter or the barge buoy. Last week we had issues where a boat on port was caught in the wind shadow of the barge buoy and boats who were not in the shadow were on starboard and calling for rights. This issue would not have happened if we rounded a mark.
I think inflatable marks are the first-best option, but I prefer navigational aids over freighters, and I don’t especially like the barge buoy when there’s a barge attached. Continuing obstructions are dangerous, and it is only a matter of time until someone hits a freighter or barge again.
At least your boat will probably bounce off QC… Not that I’ve ever been on a boat where that happened…
We are always happy to help with dropping marks - simply radio us and we will make it happen……….
