I attended my 4th consecutive Syttende Mai Regatta on Lake Kegonsa this past weekend. This year I crewed for Rich Barker on his I-20.

We were the first boat to arrive at the landing on Saturday morning, and had plenty of time to set up the boat, register, and eat some of the snacks provided by the Lake Kegonsa Sailing Club. Winds were fairly light on shore, but we could see the white caps out in the middle of the lake, and suspected the wind would build throughout the day -- and it did.

The morning race is usually a practice race, but due to the possibility of stronger winds later in the day, the race committee decided that the practice race would be scored this year. We had a catamaran fleet racing along with the mono hulls, which meant separate starts. Rich and I were a little confused by the starting sequence and mistimed the start by a minute. Luckily, we were reaching along the starting line and were able to tack quickly and still get a decent start somewhere near the middle of the line. We were covered by most of the fleet that had started above us though, and struggled to keep up on the first part of the beat. It took us a little while to work the rust out of our tacks, and we were somewhere back in the middle of the pack at the top of the first beat. Winds were probably about 12 to 15 for most of the race, and we had an uneventful spinnaker ride down to the bottom of the course. I'm not sure if we made up any ground on this leg, as I rarely took my eyes off of the spinnaker luff. Crew rarely has time for sight seeing on an I-20.

Our second beat was much better, but winds had built a bit by the time we got to the top of the course. We had some real nice speed on our second spinnaker run. About 100 yards from the finish line, just as we were preparing to jibe and douse the spinnaker, a big gust surprised us from behind. We accelerated quickly, skipped twice like a stone across a pond, and then capsized to port. We did manage to recover from the capsize in about 2 minutes, and limped across the starting line to finish. Unfortunately, we tore off the lower 2 feet of the mast track on the way back in for lunch, which ended our sailing for the day.

There was one more race in the afternoon. Many boats chose not to participate due to the strong winds. Rich and I watched the action from shore as our own Joe and Lacinda Terry battled Jim Campbell and his E-Scow for the lead. Joe and LaCinda were right on his tail for most of the race, but Jim pulled away on the last leg to take the Overall and Portsmouth first places. Rich and I finished 6th out of about 12 boats. Joe and Lacinda finished second. The food and drink was very good and very plentiful as usual. Great hamburgers off the grill for lunch, and chicken and barbecued pork catered in by Fat Jacks for dinner. Congratulations to the Lake Kegonsa Sailing Club for putting on another great event. I will surely be back for my fifth Syttende Mai next year.

-Dennis Gamble