It came as no surprise to anyone to discover that OSYC has more than one sailor who likes to go {really} fast. So when Bill showed up with his cool new Viper, I just had to give it a try. The results: easy, fast, fun. Then he tells me there’s one for sale in Savannah, and the kids really wanted to take a trip to Tybee, and I happen to like fast boats… So suddenly, OSYC is home to the fastest growing one-design fleet of Vipers in the southeast, reaching a 100% growth rate in just a few weeks, and adding an entire new class of boats to the OSYC results pages. I got my very used “new-to-me” boat set up just in time for the club Halloween Regatta. Which would have been great except for the wind howling down the lake blowing the tops off the whitecaps – I was hoping for something a little less for the maiden run. So we raced the Beneteau on a simple out-and-back course (which Ken won once again) and had fun as usual. Back at the dock, I just couldn’t take it any longer, the wind appeared to have dropped a bit and I had two crew ready for a spin. So we backed her down the ramp, struggled with a misaligned keel bolt and finally headed out. The whitecaps came back pretty quickly, but it turns out the Viper loved it – and so did the crew. The spinnaker ride was truly outstanding, despite the lack of a GPS to record our speed. (The spinnaker retrieval took us about forever and I was wondering how we were going to avoid the dam and still sail downwind.) Yep, she’s solid and fully broken in now – when the wind blows, the Viper is going sailing! And one day, when we stop dropping the spinnakers in the water, we might even win some Portsmouth races despite our 70.4 DPN! In the meantime, we’ll just have to make do with line honors and match racing with Bill So don’t forget, these boats are more fun sailed with three crew so come join the fun. And if the bug bites, we can introduce you to Justin Scott who can help you find your very own Viper.