Hello Mercury Sailors,
I was thinking about how back in the day there was a Hawaill Mercury fleet

mainly because it was cold and also because one of the skippers was Kurt Lahr's daughter who was covered in Univ. of Hawaii sailing team gear.

As you would expect, midwinter sailing is a roll of the dice. The early morning was pleasantly sunshine warm but zero wind....after a docside postponement a decent 5-8 knot (approx.) Northerly wind moved in.
Sailing on the Southhampton shoals course, the RYC got races off in a timely way by avoiding setting separate start finish lines, setting only one windward mark (normally bigger boats would get another mark further up) and shortening courses at the leeward mark. It worked out very well in terms of getting the maximum sailing but also keeping rhythm to finish all classes before the wind shut off. This was especially important because of King tides and the organizers not wanting to tow boats in...

The conditions were light but never light enough to struggle. Dave West and Shaum Sinawi duked it out alot but the true highlight was having Kurt Lahrs daughters "crushing the fleet" downwind being at least 100 pounds lighter. There was nothing you could do but hope they would go by quickly!

Short but sweet day...

Race report by Lyn Hines

Photos click here