I don't know a lot about Carter Lake but I think it's a part of the water system for Fort Collins and/or Loveland, Colorado. There are a lot of sailboats at Carter and an active racing fleet. It's a nice place to sail but since it's in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the winds can be a bit fluky at times.
I've sailed there a few times but the one that I remember most is the
first time I was there. It was the first time I had sailed on Dwane
Moore's Mac 26S and only the second time I had ever sailed. Dwane and I
rigged the boat at the main launching ramp and put the boat in the water.
We hadn't finished setting up everything but since the ramp was busy,
Dwane directed me to motor out from the shore a ways. He pointed me in a
general direction and away we went. When we were offshore a ways, Dwane
had me stop the motor and we started putting up the sails. We quickly
noticed several other Mac's sailing near us and couldn't figure out why we
were getting funny looks from the people on the other boats. A few
minutes later we heard a gun go off and saw all of the boats turn up the
lake (upwind). It then dawned on us that we had parked the boat just a
little ways behind the starting line of a Mac 26 race. No wonder the
other people looked at us funny. They obviously thought we were racing
but were very unprepared to do so.