This past weekend was the ABYC Turkey Day Regatta – their largest regatta with 220 boats sailing. Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day; the sun came out pretty early, so we had some good wind during the day. We had 7 Vipers attend the regatta, with two boats traveling from as far as Seattle to compete. We were able to get in 4 windward/leeward races with close competition at each mark rounding. There were a few “disagreements”, but for the most part we all played nice.

Full report and videos of Vipering in 30+ kts after the jump.

Team Viral’s first race got off on the wrong foot with a bad start and leeward mark rounding; we ended up finishing 4th like ducks in a row. Our next three starts were great and we ended up finishing 1st in each race. There was never a time though where it felt like we were for sure in front until we actually crossed the line. There were constant lead changes throughout all the races; it was just a matter of staying in phase with the shifts and keeping the boat fast. Viper hopeful Ed Feo drove the last two races and had a great time mixing it up with the other boats, he’s been bitten it’s just a matter of time now! After the races, we all headed up to the bar and got in line for the famous Turkey Dinner. It was amazing.

Sunday’s forecast was not for your typical sunny SoCal day. We had rain and gusts up to 35kts. After waiting around for a while, the Race Committee made the right choice of canceling the races and we had our Turkey Trophy presentations. 3rd prize was a frozen dinner, 2nd was a Game Hen, and 1st was a Turkey. Now this story doesn’t end here. Some of us adrenaline junkies decided to take the boats out and sail to Cabrillo downwind. We got to the mouth of the harbor and the waves were huge and we started to surf down towards Cabrillo. We quickly approached the shelter of the breakwater, so we popped the chute and 5 minutes later we had gone 5 football fields and were running out of real estate fast. We doused the spin and enjoyed the shelter of the tanker we were below. We rounded it and headed up back towards the breakwater. It was then that we realized there was a squall blowing through and we might find ourselves in a bad situation. We dropped the jib to be safe and it finally passed. We were now between the breakwater and the harbor entrance where the waves were getting bigger. We’d go up and see the entrance and then down and the land would disappear. It was such a rush, but we were all thankful to have made it back in safe with the rig still up! Video from Sunday: