Race Committee: Al Stiewing, RD; Bain Weinberger, Assistant RD
Food: Helen Gillespie, Greg Norris, Sandy Chetnik-Norris
Helpers: Ty Gillespie, Sandy Chetnik-Norris, Mary Jursinovic, Marie Pena, and Julie Chambers

This year we were back at the Azura Model Yacht Club in beautiful Paonia, Colorado. And as always, we had a great time! We had 14 skippers and used HMS due to the small size of our pond. Al Stiewing from the West Valley RC Mariners in Phoenix was our (superb) race director. He was assisted by Azura member, Bain Weinberger.

At Friday check-in it rained all day. (Highly unusual in a town that has been in a drought for over a decade). We also had a total mud bath of a parking lot and a bunch of wind.

As many of you know, the Azura MYC lies at about 5800 feet of elevation with a number of 11,000-foot mountains not far to the east. As such, in typical weather (meaning bright sun), we have a strong cold nighttime and early morning easterly blowing down the mountains through about 10 am, then 2 to 3 hours of calm, followed by a westerly of variable strength until the sun goes down. Therefore, we start racing early at 8 am, break until 12:30 or 1 pm, and sail again all afternoon.

On Saturday, our first race day, we had typical weather with a moderate then light easterly in the morning, and a light then moderate westerly in the afternoon. Mountain winds are shifty and puffy by nature, and Azura's topography accentuates this, so that becalmed boats surrounded by rail down competitors are a common occurrence. Despite this, Al Lehmann, Jr., won almost all of the races on Saturday. The courses and racing were just excellent, and all of the rest of us spent lots of time passing and being passed by everyone else. In the evening, as usual we met again at Azura Winery (just above the pond) for a beautiful white tablecloth dinner. Helen Gillespie, co-owner of the winery, is an excellent cook, and we had delicious local salad, paella (saffron rice with seafood, chicken, and sausage), and English cream with fresh local cherries for dessert, all accompanied by the delicious Azura wines.

Sunday dawned with strong easterlies. At 7 am it would have been D or E rig weather, but by the 8 am start we were using C rigs. Just as shifty, though. Happily for the rest of us, Al personally enjoyed the much heavier wind, but let the rest of us win most of the races. The wind went away at 10, and returned at 1pm, from the SW, light, modified by a large thunder head passing immediately north. The last B heat was a drifter, but just as the A fleet counter started (all of us with our A rigs), the thunder head released its rain, and the wind shifted immediately to the north and blew at about 25 knots. A very short, but exciting last heat!

Al Lehmann, Jr won by a landslide, Ray Seta was second, followed by Ron Stephanz in third, who beat me by a point. Mike Eades was fifth.