In spite of a forlorn forecast for the entire week, enough wind built in each day to give us great racing. Sometimes the course was short and full of lulls, but a few races were run around the long figure eight course. The wind was generally NE, directly down the runways, which made for many memorable tacking and gybing duels. Woe be to those who kept not wound up on the downwind legs: once it was gone it was wasn’t coming back easily.

The wind was so insecure that on one course we had a windward mark at both ends. Kudos to the fleet for rolling with all the weirdness. We were sailing, the boats were moving and we were racing on an amazing venue.

This photo could have been the course directions, but it’s actually some sort of directions designed to confuse the Russians in case they took over the base back in the Cold War.

The lack of wind made time for base exploration. The deeper we dig the more interesting the history becomes:

The airmen’s creative side:

The unlimited fleet was’t as able in light air as the BloKarts, but still managed to get some good races. Jeff Kent had a beautiful new sail:

Which very soon went to the other Jeff:

There was a very exciting moment when the deep roar of a big plane coming in low turned all our heads to the far end of the big runway. There was one little BloKart out there playing chicken with the plane, who was coming in with headlights on and landing gear down probably hoping for a touch and go. The BloKart held his course, exercising his right of way over the four turbo prop motor vehicle and the big guy yielded, pulled up and banked off to the west. It appeared to be a C-130 cargo plane but had no military stickers. Maybe an expert can zoom in and identify it.

Peace: 1 War: 0

Here are the other results:

The BloKarts are holding their own regatta, Blokarts only, this coming October 9-13. The Saturday of that weekend will include all kinds of festivities. Come watch, come try a BloKart, come just to soak in the powerful vibe of this amazing place.