I arrived at the beach this morning for the last day of racing for the USNationals in San Francisco. The clouds were starting to clear and the sunwas shining as the wind was building to give us another good day on thewater. One thing for sure about this place is that we dont have to worryabout not getting enough wind. The plan for today was to do one last courserace and then switch to slalom in the afternoon as the wind got stronger.the wind was looking pretty gusty from about 9-15knots. So at about 12:30 Ipulled out my 11.7 and headed out for the race.

Gold Race #7 when i got to the start boat i was very suprised to findabout a 5knot current running with the wind. it almost looked like thecommittee boat was planing upwind. This made it pretty difficult to stayright on the line. Despite the wind being stronger and steadier out in themiddle, I figured that the best chance was to go into the beach to try toget out of the current as much as possible. So I started on starboard abouthalfway down the line with Sam a little below and ahead and Phil just ontop. Micah and Jimmy started back near the boat. Phil tacked early on a gustheaded out for the middle and Micah Jimmy and most of the rest of the fleetfollowed suit. Sam seemed to have the same idea as me and despite the holeswe headed to the beach. a little before the beach i tacked just on the edgeof a gust and headed towards the mark but i didnt get the gusts quite sogood. Sam went all the way to the beach and rode the gusts perfectly to themark well in first. i rounded in second a little ahead of Phil and wellahead of the rest as they all had to double tack the mark. Sam jibed out tothe middle and i decided to ride some gusts down to the layline. we bothrounded the leeward mark at almost the same time at least a minute in frontof Phil in 3rd. Sam immediatley tacked and went to the beach. I went alittle past and tacked on top and behind him. i had pretty good angle andjust before the beach i tacked just before Sam and went straight to the markarriving there in 1st. But just as i was tacking around the mark Sam clippedthe back of my boom as he was going below. This flipped my sail around themark and i was fully pinned around the bouy by the current for almost aminute. Sam feeling bad for nocking me down did a bunch of 720s and waitedfor me. going opposite ways again he rounded leeward just before me. andtacked inside to go upwind to the finish. i went out and tacked for thefinish to cross the finish line just in front of him as he had troublemaking the line. So i secured my 3rd overall with one last bullet. Sam tookover 4th with a 2nd. Micah came in in 3rd to win his title. Rob took 4th,Seth 5th, and Phil 6th.

Final overall results :

Micah 1st

Phil 2nd

Devon 3rd

Sam 4th

Jimmy 5th

Rob 6th

Seth 7th

Mike Z 8th

In the afternoon they run a round of Slalom in a solid 25knots of wind justoff the beach. I rigged up a brand new 7.5 Windwing for the first time andwent out do my first Slalom race in over 3 years. i got Bill Wier, MikePercy and some other amateurs in my heat. being very rusty in the jibes icrashed just after my first jibe in a spinout and got like 6th. I wasleading the second one but crashed in the second jibe to finish 2nd behindBill. in the third heat i had really good speed and took the bullet. andright before the last qualification heat i broke my mast so i missed goingto the finals by one point. in the Finals Micah showed his old PWA speed andtook the victory, with Jimmy 2nd and Sam 3rd.

All in All it was a great event and i fully enjoyed the racing and the conditions. I will deffinitley return for any big events they throw here inthe future. I do hope that they will be able to put together a WorldChampionships here.

Now im headed to the Gorge for the Gorge Cup next weekend before returningto Europe for the World Championships in Leba, Poland from the 2nd to 8th ofAugust.

best regards

Devon – www.devonboulon.com