Sailing on a Mountain Top

Not too long after moving to Asheville, I was pleasantly surprised to find a small lake, actually a cooling lake for a power plant, that sported a tiny marina filled with sailboats. The sizes of boats range from about 9 feet up to a 30 footer, but most are in the 20 foot range. I went down and met the folks who were holding a bi-weekly regatta where a bunch of boats would race a pre-determined course on the lake. After speaking with the "Commodore", or the sailing club president, he let me use one of the old club boats that had been forgotten if I cleaned it up and made it sailable. Didn't take more than a day before I had the O'day 17 on the water. It's a nice old sloop that sails well in most wind up to about 15 knots. It is a lot of fun in a good breeze, you often get the rails wet when pointing high into the wind. It's also been really good sailing practice as the O'day, albeit half the size of the Cal and about 9,000 pounds lighter, are both sloops and work basically the same exact way.