Lake Petenwell - Barnum Bay Regatta,  Recaps

Recap – Petenwell 2024

June 28, 2024 /

The gloomy weather forecast for Saturday made some of CRAWs sailors understandably consider staying home this year.  Up to two inches of rain and all-day storms would make anyone a bit hesitant, but still a group did make the trip to Barnum Bay including our loyal Minnesota contingent and were rewarded with a nice three-hour window of sailing conditions on Saturday as well as a nice Sunday.

The Saturday conditions started out on the windy side at 15 with gusts of 20 knots.  Three boats sailed the four races with Kurt and Robert tied with 6 points each at the end of the day.  With the first two races at two laps and the second two at three laps those boats got plenty of sailing in as the wind softened to around 8-12 knots.

Clearing weather and some varied conditions on Sunday proved a bit more interesting.  After experiencing some anchoring issues on Saturday, the race committee set up on the bluff with a start in somewhat shallow water which proved doable and got off another two races.  Race one had NW winds at 12 knots softening to around 8 with a south running current due to Saturday’s rains.   This, with some oscillations in direction made for good racing for the 5 boats (one was lost due to Friday night saloon injuries).  Initially the right side was favored but the oscillations made for some lead changes with Robert and Debbie pulling ahead of Kurt winning by over two minutes and Shawns A Cat in the hunt.  The breeze started to show signs of dying out for the second race so the course was shortened to just one lap.  As often happens, the wind freshened at the weather mark making for a 12-minute race.  This mixed the fleet up a bit with Kurt pulling ahead closely followed by Randy Johnson with crew Hayden Graf, Brent Carlson and crew Brook Ashenbrebrener (new to sailing) and the crew of Robert and Debbie again with Shawns A Cat close behind.

I want to thank the Barnum Bay Yacht Club again for hosting and especially the hospitality of Rick and Wayne that made the race committee work very enjoyable.

Guy Selsmeyer