A longwinded report from the last weekend:

The Verve Cup in Chicago was interesting last weekend. 8 registered boats allowed us a one-design start.

Tex Hull from Hullabaloo loaned his boat to Bob Cox while Ricochet is having some work done on her.

Awesome had the most diverse team of the group, with people flying in from Tortola, Paris, and Connecticut.

Fridays races turned out to be all light air. The preacher from Muskegan always managed to be in the correct place the entire day. For race 1, Muskegan boats were first and second. Light air sailing on the eastern shore seems to be their forte.

Race 2 is a blur at the moment. With the pin pretty heavily favored, Planxty did get off a port tack start there. Hallel continued with their light air prowess and took another bullet.

Saturday's LD race was an interesting change of pace_ a foggy day with wind predictions of 20 from the north. Chicago Yacht Club decided they wanted to try something different than 3 more w/l twice around. The course was roughly a 2 mile radius circle, with a 5 mile leeward leg thrown in for fun. Scott Tonguis (yes, of Zephyr fame) did some of that New Orleans vodoo magic to Awesome's rig. They led around every mark of the race course. Unfortunately, somewhere around leg 7 (or maybe 10, I lost count), the wind started to shut off.

The lead went back and forth several times between Awesome, Hallel, Circus, and even Planxty for a minute or 3. Hallel (almost) rounded the mark first before being set backwards by a current (yes, there are indeed currents on the great lakes). After spending an hour bobbing around near the windward mark, Planxty carefully computed that it would take a 30 knot squall to blow through in order to finish within the 6pm time limit. A call was placed to the J/30s, and this time Planxty was 1st_ to turn the engine on and motor back to the bar. Most of the other boats eventually followed, but Hullabachet soldiered on. They were about a mile from the shortened finish line when the time limit did expire. Of course, that 30 knot squall did come through, soaking Bob Cox & crew_ just a little bit too late.

Megan from Planxty had arranged a pizza party at a local restaurant. It was a pleasant walk up there on a beautiful Chicago evening through Millennium Park. More than 30 sailors had a great time. It was great getting to talk to Cynthia Ross (aka Redhead) and her husband Eduardo. Hearing the state of the New Orleans fleet from Scott was not encouraging.

Sunday dawned with more typical Chicago fall sailing. A decent NE breeze with 3-4 ft. waves left over from a storm on Saturday night. Every team had a different idea of which headsail to use. Hullabaloo chose their lovely looking #3, Hallel, Awesome, and Circus used a #1, while Planxty started with a 2. Bill Anderson, with a comfortable lead in the regatta decided to be generous and give the rest of the fleet a minute and a half head start.

Hullabaloo with the #3 was doing quite well. We sailed side by side for a while and they were going a bit higher than Planxty, and just as fast. When we bailed out of there, Scott Tonguis driving Awesome jumped on top of us. Awesome pushed us out to the port tack layline before heading for the mark, rounding in first.

Awesome chose to round the closer right gate, while Planxty headed to the left one. After rounding, Awesome continued off to the left side of the course, while Planxty split to the right. A nice right shift along with a ton of separation put Planxty ahead of Awesome at the windward mark. Down the run, Circus and Awesome were battling for 2nd place. Try as hard as they could, Awesome couldn't slow Circus enough and had to settle for 3rd. Bill Anderson on Hallel came back from seriously last place to 5th.

Points between the top 3 boats going into the final race were close. Only 1.5 points between Hallel in the lead and Circus, with Planxty in between at 6.75. Rather like good one-design racing should be.

With the wind lighter for race #5, everybody was using the big sail. Again, the pin end was the favored side of the line. While Planxty really wanted the right side of the beat, we just couldn't pass up a pin end start. After the start, Awesome was close to windward, but we just couldn't quite cross them safely_ then comes a further 10 degree lefty. "Ready about!" After crossing Awesome, we continued to the right to consolidate with Circus and Hallel. Fortunately for Planxty, they were both sticking close together.

The run turned into a battle between Temptation and Awesome for 2nd place. Once again, Awesome drew the losing hand right at the finish line. Temptation nosed ahead by 1 second.

Fourth place turned into a 3 way tie at 26 points. Both tie-breakers in the rules had to be used_ something the scoring program hadn't quite figured out. Temtation won both of those for 4th.

For the first time sailing one-design at the Verve, it was a great weekend. CYC's course management was very good_ they started the T10s last, and sent them on the longer course. We didn't really have many issues with them rounding marks, or having to weave through a ton of chutes going upwind.

Final results:

Pts: Name

16.5 Planxty
21.0 Circus
21.5 Hallel
26.0 Temptation
26.0 Hullabaloo
26.0 Awesome
37.0 Defiant

Dennis Bartley
Planxty, s/n 23994
hull 205