Bristol Cup Regatta; Lost in the Bermuda Triangle

The J/22, Scirocco's Song, in a nice breeze at the start of Sunday's second race, Race 3 for the Bristol Cup 2008. Winds ranged from 6 to 10 mph, typically around 8 mph or 6 to 7 knots in mild Force 3 conditions.

The regatta weekend was named after long-time Rio Grande Sailing Club member John Bristol, who used to race the Catalina 25 Andale to great success in the cruising fleet. John always loved to sail a reach leg on a triangle course, so in his memory we ran a 5A long triangle course.

Because we only run a few triangle courses in a year, have some new racers, and some buoys are not properly marked by local authorities, a few crews found navigating the course a challenge. However, that wasn't true for the first two boats to finish; a J/24 beat the sole J/22 over the line by only 9 seconds, but lost out on corrected time by 21 seconds as the boats completed the nominally 3.7 NM-long course to marks 5 (buoy 25A), 3 (green buoy 23), 1 (13A), and back to the start/finish line in just over 47 minutes.

J/24 1275 Oso enjoys a nice day at Elephant Butte Lake at the start of Sunday's second race, the third race of the Bristol Cup weekend.

Nessie sails by on starboard while Five Planks, a Freedom 21 rigged as a sloop, approaches the line to finish her first race of the day and her first series race under her new owners. By the time the B fleet boats had finished their first race of the day on Sunday, the PHRF A fleet boats had already started their second race of the day.

The C&C 29 no. 1176, Nessie, powers enjoying the force 3 breeze, while the J fleet boats sail a reach leg under spinnaker in the far background.

Portrait of Nessie.