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Did you do enough to secure your spot? Find out at the awards banquet this Wednesday!
Race 10 capped off series 2 brilliantly! We had a gorgeous breeze out of the east that slowly built throughout the night. It seemed that every tack and gybe brought just a little more breeze with each turn. It's nights like these that continue to put a smile on your face. As the breeze builds, so does the intensity, the speed, and the groove. The boat loads up quicker and quicker out of each maneuver and you continuously chase the next puff and the next rush as the boat heels over and then punches forward as you flatten it back out. However, the race must still end and on a night like this past week, you still want more. Sailing in becomes bittersweet as you realize there are only a few tacks left... Good news! Encore starts in two weeks! You can still get your fix if you're craving more just like me. Start times do shift up a little earlier but that just means you can sneak out of work earlier ;) So go ahead and get ahead in your projects and we'll see you on the race course! Thanks to the RC team led by Bruce Barton and Tom Graham for a well set course to cap off series 2! Let me know if there are any corrections! See you at the banquet to find out who won! -Kyle _______________________________________________________________ Anyone else's left foot get a workout last night? Idk about y'all but I was having to change gears left and right. Clutch in, clutch out, clutch in, clutch out. Felt like I was in stop and go traffic in an old school muscle car. Lemme tell ya, I stalled it a few times.
The breeze was shifty and puffy but it was more than welcome after our week off last time out! I know Dana did her wind dance, and it seems like everyone else's prayers were answered. However, Dana didn't do her moon dance and we had to break out the running lights early to do the cloud cover. Nonetheless there's something quite serene about the soft glow of green or red on the corner of the headsail that I missed. Kinda crazy that we've had the wind and clear skies to keep the lights off until now! So big thanks to the RC team led by Dana Stewart and Spencer Gay for the appropriately long course to satisfy all of our withdrawals from last week. It's awesome to maximize our time on the water and in the breeze. Dana and Spencer were assisted by Heather Temske, Betsy Culler, Jill Mashburn, Teryl Worster, Erich Worster, Ryan Jones, Corey Jones, and Norm Barnes. We also need to thank Jill Mashburn, Irene Petrie, Debbie Stewart, and Bea Terrell for a fantastic dinner! Don't miss out on the last race of series 2 next week! Yep, that's right! It's time to crunch the numbers and see who you need to cover to protect your position. For most of you, that's going to be pretty tough though... There's a lot of boats to cover! A bunch of boats are within 1 point of each other and with another drop coming available next week, there's a whole lot of math to be done. In Low cruiser, watchout for Bob Morris making waves on his hot new boat and trying to track down Randy and the MusiCAL Harmony crew in 4th. Keep an eye on the battle for 2nd in the high cruiser fleet, Sails Call and Slainte have been trading blows all series. In the Melges fleet, Mike Krantz would swing some big points with another drop... He's chasing both Tonys right now, but they could be chasing him next week! Large Sportboat has three boats that might be in with a shot (honestly I gotta look some stuff up to make sure I get that math right and my brain can't do it right now). In Mid PHRF, We need a tiebreaker race to settle 4th place with Juergen Haeberle and Kurt Stadele. If the Your Move crew doesn't pay attention to their moves though, they could lose out to both of them! (A Bullet for Jurgen, a Second for Kurt, and a 5th for David would put them in a 3 way tie) In the J24 fleet, the Hawkeye crew and the Cinderella team will be duking it out over second. With another drop, Cinderella would actually have 1 point to give. In High PHRF, the Strega team could catch solo sailor Bo with a bullet next week, and if they sail like they did at the last LARC race, well Bo better bring his A game. TLDR, don't miss out on next week's race! You never know what could happen.... As always, let me know if there's any corrections. See y'all next week! - Kyle __________________________________________________________________ Y'all its getting intense out there!
On yet another gorgeous Wednesday night I was pleased to witness competitive and aggressive starting strategies as every team worked hard to position themselves to hit that first shift! Everyone seems to be getting faster and faster each week and it shows in the scores. So it's time to check in on the competition, because there are plenty of heated battles brewing on the race course. In the Low Cruiser fleet only 3 points separate the leaders, in High Cruiser, 2 points separate the top 3, The melges top 3 are split at 3 point intervals, and the Large Sportboats have 3 boats within 3 points of the lead. In The J24 fleet, second place is only 2 points out, and the top 4 are within 6 points. In High PHRF, the Ol' Bullit Team had tracked down that silly 22 but burned a drop this week. Of course, these scores will change a lot if we add another drop and as the averages update, but keep an eye on your competition, they may be closer than you think! I'm eager to continue to watch as we see more aggressive starts, tighter covers, and riskier crosses coming in the next few weeks. However, be careful not to push it too far... One mistake will send you plummeting down the order when the scores are this tight. And a DSQ, OCS, or DNC can send you even deeper into the fleet. So sail hard, but sail clean; and most importantly, don't miss out on an upcoming race! Thanks to the RC team of Tony Stanley, Marten Kendrick, Ansley, Sophia, Shannon, and Eric for getting us racing on another Wednesday without our friendly neighborhood X mark. Also thanks to our culinary team led by Will Brown who made some phenomenal spaghetti and sausage! That's my first experience with sausage in spaghetti and well it won't be my last. And y'all went above and beyond to bring some delicious banana pudding! Also thanks to all our freelance photographers on the facebook group! Y'all have been killing it recently. Thanks again to all our volunteers! Let me know if there are any corrections! See y'all Wednesday! -Kyle ________________________________________________________________ Y'all I'm so mad!
I was determined to get a BUNCH of sick photos from RC this week and then my dang phone died after the 3rd fleet rounded the windward mark... (I've put some of my fav pics here but I'll post the full library to the Facebook group) But let me tell you what.... I talked last week about making sure that you take a moment to enjoy the beauty of what we do every week. Look outside your boat and be cognizant of the sunset and spinnakers and smiling faces all around you. Y'all I was jealous because of the pictures but they don't do it justice. I was fortunate enough to be on the mark boat for RC this week (if you didn't notice X is missing, so we had to make do). And after my phone died and a few more boats rounded the windward mark, the sunset poked through the clouds and lit up a rainbow of spinnakers running all the way down the lake. We motored around the edges of the course to go watch the leeward roundings and check in with the barge and to glide across the water and watch the spinnakers and sunset almost rotate around you is one of the most majestic scenes anyone could dream of. So this week I would like to thank all of y'all for showing up and showing out with your beautiful kites. If you haven't done RC or if you haven't brought a safety boat with you for RC. Do it. It's amazing. Volunteering is totally worth it! Speaking of volunteers I need to thank Mike Harrington for organizing dinner last week! Yes, it can be as easy as ordering pizza to volunteer for dinner. If you're interested in helping out, reach out to the officers. We can always use more volunteers! This week, our RC was Davis MacLeod, David Reddaway, Wheeler Sutton, Matthew Simpson, Tim DeWitt, and Team Highlander. We apologize for the difficulties with the radio (note to future RCs, the front radio on the barge apparently has a VERY limited range. use the one in the back of the boat). That being said, I'm proud of y'all for figuring it out the old school way. I've also attached corrections to last week's race. As always let me know if there are any corrections! Thank you, Kyle _________________________________________________________________ Guys.... Y'all making me jealous.
I heard through the rumor mill that it was a fantastic Wednesday Night with gorgeous weather and a comfortable 6-8 knot breeze. And then I saw these pics on Facebook and I had serious FOMO. I can try to make something up about the experience, but for this week I will just let you bask in your own glory. Sometimes we don't realize what we have while we're in the moment but when you take a step back, you realize just how majestic and beautiful your experience was. So take a look at these pics and let them remind you of just how special each and every one of our Wednesday nights are. For this special Wednesday, we need to thank the RC Team led by Brad Bowers and Mike and Rebecca Krantz. I'm not sure what happened with the dinner this week, but hopefully you thanked your server and I'll be sure to get them a shoutout in next week's write up! As always, let me know if there are any corrections needed! Thank you, Kyle ______________________________________________________________  Apologies for the short write up this week, my last couple of weeks have been full of travel with the exception of Wednesday nights. At the moment, I'm in New Jersey for the Thistle Nationals. (No, I don't really fit on a thistle so good..). However, best of luck to our fleet members Caroline Speir, Marten Kendrick, and Wheler Sutton as they try their hand at dinghy sailing this week! You may not realize it, but our fleet is full of well traveled sailors and some very competitive ones at that. Ask around and you'll hear some pretty wild stories at our dinners!
Speaking of dinner, there is dinner this week! But we are still looking for some more volunteers for dinner this series. Please reach out to Jonathan or Will Brown if you're interested in helping, they can coach you through it! As always let me know if there are any corrections! Thank you, Kyle __________________________________________________________________ Hey y'all sorry for the delay on scores this week! I unfortunately had a lot of late nights at work this week and have let some of my non work tasks slip.
It was a crazy week in a lot more than just me being busy. We've had plenty of heavy thunderstorms this week (fun fact, my building at work was struck by lightning on monday, kinda wild), some big assasination attempt, and a global IT outage. I'll try not to bore you with the news too much, because that's part of why we all come to Wednesday nights. We want to unplug from the chaos of the world. It's becoming increasingly difficult to unplug lately. I think a lot of people are taking notice of that following the IT issues many experienced this week. Sailing, however, is very analog. Some of y'all may have some fancy autopilot on board or some electronic compasses, but if the electronics were fried, we could all still sail. In fact, we could still sail in races. A whiteboard and some flags is all we need to pull off a race. Heck we proved it this week. The storms caused increased traffic this wednesday with traffic lights being out, and people trying to drive in reduced visibility. We didn't shove off the dock until after 7:00. But as we approached we could see the flags going up and down and recognized our sequence. We started right at the boat as soon as we got there and read the course on our way across the line. No VHF on, no watch running, but we figured it out with the old school flags, and sailed off into a beautiful breeze, completely unplugged from the world as we know it, but blissfully in connection with our surroundings via the purely mechanical systems of a sailboat. Very literally a solid mechanical connection with nature. No dependency on electronics, just some ropes and a wooden stick we call a tiller. Somehow Wednesday nights deliver sanity in the chaos every week. Some higher power allows us to sail every week. Call it divine intervention, the wind gods watching out for you, or just Dana and Daniel doing wind dances, whatever it is it works. Wednesday is often the magic day. The skies parted this week to give us just enough time to enjoy a full-length course in a beautiful westerly breeze. And we all got to enjoy a wonderful night of sailing free from the chaos of the world and the binds of technology. Boy am I thankful for it, because the rest of my week was unfortunately very plugged in. This week we thank RC led by Brent McKenzie and Ryan Jones for allowing us to unplug! There should be dinner next week, but we still need volunteers to help us out for a lot of the series 2 dinners. Please reach out to any of the officers if you are interested in helping! All costs are fully reimbursed by the fleet. As always let me know if there are any corrections! Thank you, Kyle ________________________________________________________________ We're back baby! While I thoroughly enjoyed shouting "USA! USA! USA!" over the holiday break, it didn't quite scratch the same itch as shouting "TRIM! TRIM! TRIM!" at Papa Doug on a Wednesday night. As an all-knowing skipper, I definitely needed to get that out of my system. (Just kidding, try to be nice to your crew and your boat. You'll reap the benefits later)
In all seriousness, this week was an awesome way to kick off series 2! We had a great breeze and a lengthy course to match! I always love a long race, but it was especially enjoyable after the hiatus from racing! Thanks to RC led by Jeff Freeman and Dennis Terrell, with help from Cathy Freeman, Mike Tatteris, Pat Finnik, Tom Telinski, and Ava! Everyone wants to get off to a good start to the series, and it was apparent this week with very competitive starts! You don't want to set yourself behind the others in your fleet too early in the series. However, sometimes starting fast is not what ensures that. The aggressive starts led to a lot of boats being over early this week. Sometimes the best way to get a good start is to not set yourself behind. Minimize the risk and then you don't have to dig yourself out of a hole. The Melges series 1 champs, Ex-Kahn find themselves scoring OCS after week 1, setting themselves behind Davis who's now jumped to the early lead (he asked me to shout out that his boat is for sale if you're interested in buying a race winner). However, talking to Mike Harrington after the race, he told me that he was a minute late to the start, but still managed to keep his hot streak alive and put another flyer on the cruiser fleet. 1 minute late to the start definitely sounds a lot better than OCS. Much of sailing is risk management. Don't set yourself too far behind and you've always got a shot. If you're ahead, use your lead to cover the fleet rather than chasing a puff on the horizon (the Ex-Kahn team is usually very good at this). But, I can't say I haven't enjoyed the thrill of picking the right corner of the course to go all the way to. My advice is keep it clean, but don't forget to have fun ;) We also need to thank our culinary volunteers led by Will Brown for some phenomenal tacos this week! Please note we still need volunteers to prepare 4 more dinners through series 2. Reach out to WIll Brown or any of the officers if you are interested. All costs for preparing the dinner are reimbursed by the fleet! For those of you that believed my ruse about the file corruption of Mr. MacLeod's sail plans, never fear! I accidentally attached the final results to the email which were supposed to be a surprise for the awards ceremony and this was my attempted cover story. Thanks to Brendon and Linda for capturing the two pics above of the sporty conditions! You can see more pics from them in the Facebook Group. As always, let me know if there are any corrections needed. See you all next week! Thank you, Kyle ________________________________________________________________ Who will win series 1?
6 of 8 fleets had three or more boats within 3 points going into race 10. Three fleets have tiebreakers deciding the podium finishes. Mike Harrington has been making a late push in the Low Cruiser fleet and finished the series off with a statement race win. They nailed a shift coming out of the right of all places last night. But was it enough to advance his series ranking? Did Cinderella drop the ball with their 4th place finish? There's plenty of hungry J24s lurking just behind them in a fleet that's been trading places all series. In High PHRF, the light air Lindenberg struggled in the big breeze this week, but was their points buffer enough to save them from the hard charging Juniors or the Ol' Bullit crew? Find out next week at the series 1 awards banquet! There will be good food, trophies, and great stories! Thanks to RC led by Mike Macleod and Francois Ricard for a long race course to match our fantastic breeze! Their crew included April Macleod, Malcolm Jewell, Cameron Burry, Justin Zagarella, Patrick Mazzeo, Dan Drechsel, Nick Rivard, and JJ Miller. As always, let me know if there are any corrections! Thank You, Kyle ________________________________________________________________ Alright y'all this one isn't a fun one. I choose to make tonight an example, but that does not mean that similar situations have not occurred in previous weeks.
If you read my race reviews, you may recognize the following excerpt: "If you haven't noticed, the sport of sailing is pretty much run entirely by volunteers. It's really a special thing. So acknowledge them at every moment you can, and when you get your chance to give back, don't let it slip away." This excerpt is from Race 7. It was designed to encourage more people to volunteer, and more people to thank and praise volunteers. Last night I heard a lot of bickering and it wasn't warranted. Our race committee last night was willing to sub in at late notice and was relatively inexperienced on the barge. Nonetheless, they got us a great race course set. In the non-cruising classes we had a beautiful windward and leeward leg. It wasn't a reaching course, it was about as upwind/downwind as you can get. Sure, maybe not everything went perfectly, but I think they did a great job, especially considering their minimal RC experience. The biggest issue I saw last night was: y'all chose to criticize our wonderful RC team for the starting order, because it was not what you were used to. I know it may be frustrating when things do not go according to plan, however: SI 7.2 states: "The RC may combine or split Fleet starts at its discretion." So pay attention. I know that the RC posted the starting order on their board, as well as put the fleet flags up according to this posting. There were definitely opportunities to know when your start was. If you want to complain about the procedure in the future: Do it via the right channels. File for redress. However DO NOT. I repeat: DO NOT take your frustration out on the volunteers that provide a racing experience or food for you on a Wednesday night. The J22 I sail on Wednesday night is called Highlander. My Dad named it after the 1986 movie because the biggest piece of advice from the movie is "Don't lose your head." My Dad, like any other boat owner, was not always the best at this. However, I have found it to be a very beneficial piece of advice on my boat and when sailing on other boats. It keeps the boat moving fast and helps you avoid silly mistakes. In the future, before you lose your head at RC, another boat, or other volunteers, ensure you've done everything absolutely perfect. Never lose your head and blame a volunteer before you blame yourself Our volunteers give up their own opportunities to race, time at the regatta party, time with their friends on the dock, time with their families at home, sleep and more to allow you to race every week. So please, be appreciative first and critical later. This week, we ALL need to thank the RC team led by Bo Scott and Bob Morris, and the cooking team led by Wheeler Sutton, including Caroline Speir, Linda Cellamare, Davis MacLeod, and Will Brown. Let me know if there are corrections needed to the scores. I'm sure I've put my foot in my mouth in some way here, and if I have, I apologize. However, please show nothing but thanks and support to our volunteers in the future. Thank You, Kyle _________________________________________________________ A good night for boiled peanuts if you ask me! At least that's what we were consuming through the very drifty first half of the race on the J22. I heard stories of other boats choosing a much more liquid diet on the water though.
Unfortunately we did not have our usual stash of rum on the 22 due to Papa Doug being just a little under the weather. We had settled for beer to accompany our boiled peanuts. Turns out this was a critical mistake as we found ourselves entering a port/starboard situation with Ole Sole Mio. We had seen Ol' Bullit make a cross that we didn't think was going to be as feasible as it turned out to be. This gave us hopes for keeping our miniscule sail plan from getting stuck behind the giant Beneteau. As we approached though, we heard the dreaded call "Starboard" and had to make what felt like a mile long duck to avoid the skyscraper floating through the water in front of us. As we passed by, we were informed that our unfortunate situation could have been remedied with transfer of the amber liquid nourishment we not so salty dogs refer to as rum.(we're lake sailors, do we get the old salts title? Let me know in the comments below.). It sounds as if the Ol' Bullit crew had offered such refreshment to the Sole Mio crew in exchange for a cross. So this week's piece of advice is that sportsmanship is always the best way to compete.Oh, and always bring RUM! This week's RC was headed by Stefan Schulze and Mike Iuvone. It included members Paul Stoeffer, Julie Stuart, Emma Smith, and Peter Kowalski. Thank you for your service! As always, let me know if there are any corrections. Next week is a dinner week, we'll see you there! Thank you, Kyle ____________________________________________________________________________ Unfortunately, Wednesday also shared some of these characteristics. I found myself in park on I85 at about 12:15 behind a set of street sweeper trucks that had decided it was necessary to hold all lanes of traffic. This turned my normal 2-hour drive after Wednesdays into about 2 hours and 40 minutes. Let's just say Thursday was not a good day for Kyle's punctuality at work.
However, per usual the actual Wednesday night event was the much needed serenity and best way to cut loose in the middle of the week. Wednesdays has always served as my mental break in the week, whether it was at school or at work or just during my time off. It's a time where we can slow our brains down and empty them from real life and play with our big grown-up toys for a little while. Unlike my drive home, this Wednesday went off without any hold ups. The breeze was on our side, the race committee setup and ran the races without hiccup. and volunteers stepped up at late notice to cook us a wonderful meal. So this week, I want to thank the wind gods for our breeze, but also all of the volunteers that make Wednesday Nights happen every year. Whether you're a keelboat fleet officer, a race committee volunteer, a culinary specialist, or even just good at following instructions on the frozen lasagna tray. Cheers! These are the people that allow us to escape reality every week. Even if our return to reality is sooner than we expected it to be. If you haven't noticed, the sport of sailing is pretty much run entirely by volunteers. It's really a special thing. So acknowledge them at every moment you can, and when you get your chance to give back, don't let it slip away, This week we need to thank RC members Tiffany, Gary, Mike, Robert, Thomas, David Wright, David Schanck, Justin, and Rob for an outstanding job. We also need to thank Will Brown for helping lead our last-minute volunteers for dinner! Note: I think we still need some more volunteers for helping with dinners. If that is something you're interested in, reach out to [email protected]. There's no cost to you, it is all covered by the fleet. As always let me know if there are any corrections needed! Thank you, Kyle __________________________________________________________________  Dana is awesome! Dana is great!
It's not everyday you find yourself being threatened by a schoolteacher, and normally Dana is one of the kindest people I know. But I guess she turns into a devil on the water.... see what I did there? Dana's competitive juices were flowing on wednesday and she sailed quite the killer race to put some proper distance between her and the remainder of the J24s and high PHRF boats. Following the race she said that I better put her in the write up, so here we are! All joking aside, Dana kicked our butts. Talking to her after the race, we found out that she was just prioritizing clean air, and keeping the boat speed up. Sounds simple right? It's what everyone knows they should do in light air. However, last night everyone's competitive juices were flowing. I don't think I heard a single start go off without some hooting and hollering back and forth between boats. Some of it was internal to the fleet, some of it was external. What all of these people had in common though is that they were not worried about their own boat speed, but rather other boats. Who wasn't worried about other boats? Dana. She was focused on boatspeed. And she won. By a lot. Sometimes it pays to focus on yourselves and not get too worried about pushing other boats around. The J24s and high PHRF boats that started at the pin found themselves fighting with each other, fouling each other, and eventually getting stuck in each other's air, but Dana just started mid line, cleared her air and kept going fast. So here's my advice: Keep Calm and Sail on. Make sure your boat is going fast before you worry about others and the rest takes care of itself. Thanks to a stellar race committee from Melges 24: Area 51 and Beneteau 235: Slainte! Members included Ben, Danny, Kate, Caroline, Bill, Kyle, and Maggie! Next week is a dinner week! We'll See y'all there! P.S. I noticed a lot of conflicts during the starts regarding boats in different fleets being 'in the way of other starts.' There is not an official definition of this in the racing rules of sailing. However, boats are given up to 5 minutes after the starting signal to complete their start. Boats are also defined to be 'racing' after the 'P" flag has been displayed during their start sequence. It is common courtesy on Wednesdays to keep the line clear if you are not starting. However, due to the nature of our rolling starts, there often ends up being some overlap between when boats should be occupying the zone. During these times, by rule, unfortunately we can only default to the right of way rules (port/starboard, windward/leeward). This past week amplified some of the issues due to the light air and pin favored line. Boats needed to stay close to ensure they would be able to get back to their start. It seems that we were able to sort these issues out on the water with relative ease. However, please be courteous of others on the water. Stay out of each other's way as much as possible, and when issues do occur, try to stay calm and work it out with reason. My advice for navigating Wednesday starts: make a box around the starting line that is five boat lengths in any direction. After checking the course, stay out of it until your warning signal (start signal for the fleet prior). This should keep you relatively out of the way. But also remember you may not be the biggest boat on the water and your 5 lengths may be different than another boat's (sorry, I'm guilty... the 22 feels like a mouse compared to some of yall). Second piece of advice: get on the line. Starting is one of the most fun and rewarding challenges when you learn to maneuver your boat close to others and if you're on time to your start, you don't have to worry about the boats in the next start. You probably don't need to be more than 5 boat lengths from the line during your sequence. Third piece of advice: Losing the start doesn't lose you the race. It's okay to give up a little position for cleaner air or just to be courteous and understanding of others. Don't lose your head at the start. What matters most is the remaining 99% of the race. Keep Calm and sail on. As always let me know if there are any corrections needed to the scores! Thank you, Kyle ____________________________________________________________________ "I'm eating Header here" said the skipper to the crew. Or maybe the skipper hollered it... lol those back of the boat guys am I right?
Race 5 turned into yet another gorgeous night on Lanier. I packed my foulies and thought for sure I was going to need them based on the cloud cover on the way up. Of course when you pack them you never need them, so I guess you're welcome for warding off the rain. What the dark clouds did bring was great breeze to start the night! It was blowing enough that we decided to finally try the headstay adjustment we've been wanting to do on the ol 22. Of course we didn't have time to measure the rig properly and do this so who knows what the shortening of the headstay did to the shrouds, but we said "There's breeze! Let's send it and see what happens." Of course the breeze slowly eased up through the night as the clouds passed over the lake, which led this back of the boat guy to do his fair share of complaining... Talking with other sailors at dinner led me to realize everyone had similar feelings to me of hunting for power and feeling headed. "I can't get it going!" "Find me more breeze!" "Why are we so slow?!" "More header!?" Common words from those grouchy skippers on any Wednesday, but they might have been more prevalent this week than others. This particular slowly dying breeze was yet another new condition for me to sail in, and it presented another new learning opportunity. Turns out my bickering was not because of our adjustment but because the eerily slow dissipation of wind velocity created an apparent header effect. Do you chase this header to try to keep boat velocity up? Hold course and wait for the breeze and boat speed to line up? Roll tack to gain momentum again? I'm not sure what the best course of action is and it is likely boat and situation dependent but this is one of the many challenges in sailing that allows the sport to keep giving. Our desire to learn more and master the conditions keeps us pushing. And a night like tonight had equal chances of stumping those crazy young whippersnappers like me as well as the old farts like Papa Doug (I suppose he's not that old yet but we still gotta poke at him). Many thanks to RC members Jim Chambers. Mike Harrington, Norman Plotkin, Linda Hopes, Penney Johnson, Mike Smith, and Jillian Gray for an appropriately long course to enjoy our good breeze! And thanks to chef team Anita Lenkeit, Tammy Duran, Cathy Freeman, Irene Petree, Linda Cellamare, Marie Umberger, and Dennis Terrell for some sweet spaghetti and meatballs! I've attached scores for this week as well as one more edit to last week's scores. Let me know if there are any corrections! Also I am aware that the RDG scores for RC are including the drops at the moment. I will unfortunately have to manually override these at the end of the series, but they should be an okay approximation for now. Thank you, Kyle _______________________________________________________________  Patience is key to sailing. I want to thank our race committee volunteers for their patience this week. The team headed by Christian Koerner and Randy Phillips and crew and supported by the Georgia Tech Sailing club did a phenomenal job to notice the movement in the clouds above the still water. They held off until the breeze came and we had yet another gorgeous Wednesday Night Race.
Our boat might have been filled with excessive patience this week. We normally arrive at the club at about 6:15 after the 2 hour drive from my work in Newnan and have to scramble to put our boat in the water and run the motor at full tilt while rigging to make the race. However this week we were early and Papa Doug was determined to sail out instead of break out the motor. This is a challenge we love to give ourselves on team Highlander because why make so much racket when you could have peace and quiet? We did manage to complete this challenge this week despite my impatience and desire to reach for the motor. We kept scooting inch after inch, but because we sailed out, we were one of the first boats to experience the new breeze filling from the south. The whole time we were waiting, we got to enjoy beautiful views, fun drinks, and good conversation. This week reminded me that patience always pays off. My poke and prod (all in good fun of course) this week goes to the Melges 24 fleet. They live a cushy life with their top of the board starting order and their speedy boats. They very frequently complete their entire course as prescribed and rarely have to worry about a shortened course. Well lemme tell you, us 'slow' boats get to see that S flag go up just about every week and get pretty used to needing to look out for it. At the boat ramp, there were quite a few stragglers in the melges fleet who were even lagging behind that pesky J22 (I wonder who that is... :P) to get out of the water. However there were also quite a few boats that appeared to have been packed up and long gone. Turns out sometimes slow is fast and taking your time to check the course or for signals can save you precious time later. Insert friendly reminder about carrying a VHF to listen for courtesy broadcast and keeping your eyes peeled for RC signals and postings (Yes VHF broadcasts from RC are a courtesy not a requirement). My examples this week all illustrate that sometimes slow is fast. A long smooth rounding is a fast one for boatspeed, sailing through the header to better pressure gets you to the top mark first, and monitoring for signals keeps you on course. So stay patient; you will be rewarded with wind and speedy races. Here's your reminder that next week is a dinner week! As always let me know if there are any corrections needed to the scores. Thank you, Kyle _________________________________________________________________  A long winded write up for a not so long winded race, but hear me out:
There are many things that can define sailing experiences. Sailing can be a way to get from place to place, a way to relax on a sunny day, a challenge to cross an ocean, survival through a storm, arriving at the weather mark first, or even frustration when you have to break out the paddle. What do all of these things have in common? Each of these versions of our favorite activity all boil down to finding ways to connect with your surroundings. Our version of connection is through competition. Every week, we take to the water hoping to understand the conditions in front of us and find a way to conquer those conditions. Each week presents its own challenges, some requiring crews to sling themselves over lifelines to hold the boat flat as the skipper tries to keep the bow down and the trimmers continuously depower the sails while trying to maintain boatspeed. Others require the whole crew to consistently try to hunt for dark water as the boat struggles to maintain flow over the foils. For me, last night's conditions define what it means to connect with your surroundings on the race course. The lulls had crews rolling the boat to leeward and the skippers hunting for power, but the stronger puffs had crews all the way back to the windward rail and the skippers taking all of the ups while they had it. What is so special about this kind of racing is that it all matters. This racing showcases teams that can constantly change gears and know what the boat needs as it goes through each wind speed by finely tuning the sail trim and moving weight back and forth on the boat inch by inch to maintain proper heel angle. But while doing all of this, crews also had to find the next puff or shift in a breeze that was just consistent enough to hide the differences as much as possible. And on top of that, the fantastic participation resulted in full starting lines and boat on boat tactics coming into play on every tack and gybe last night. When one has to stay that active and attentive on the boat, it makes the time fly and you wish there was more breeze and more daylight to keep going. This activity challenges the mind and the body in ways that we all crave. It's why we love this sport and why we share it with our families, friends, other loved ones, and even strangers. My summary this week has turned into an essay but I was prompted by this gorgeous picture that Jurgen took from RC to share some of the things I love about this sport and I could talk for hours. What I hope is that as you look at this picture and read my essay, you are prompted to share this sport with others too. My shoutouts for the week are prime examples of this. Stefan Schulze and the Cinderella crew took on an extra soul this week. The Georgia Tech Sailing Club managed to field two full J24s this week and had extra sailors, one of which was accepted by Stefan and crew on Cinderella for the night. Scott Bean is my second shoutout for helping the Georgia Tech kids pull their second boat out of the water late last night. I'm not sure who helped them put the boat in the water, but to whoever that may be you earn my praise too. Many of you know the college sailors for their up and down participation at the club, but what most of you may not understand is that the college clubs are filled with volunteer students sacrificing valuable study time to share sailing with other students who haven't had access to sailing before. Following the races last night, these fresh young sailors were telling so many stories of the battles they had across the three boats they sailed on in the race. The excitement Scott, Stefan and others provided for these fresh faces is what will grow our sport and make it last for the future. So when you have the opportunity to provide more sailing opportunities, please do so. Whether it's helping someone set up their boat, tuning up with fellow competitors, explaining a boat on boat situation after heated words on the course, teaching new crew, sharing a rum drink, or volunteering for RC duty. Do your part to further sailing. As always, but maybe more so this week, thank you to RC members Bill Overend, Jurgen Haeberle, Lester Ross, Matt Salley, and Bruce Johnson. Reminder that there will be food following races next week! As always let me know if there are any scoring corrections. We'll see you on the water! -Kyle _______________________________________________________________  Holy Shift! If you managed to brave the rain you were rewarded with an ever changing race course that definitely made for an eventful night. By the time we were coming back downwind in the High PHRF fleet, we had seen many large shifts, but I was not prepared for what became a race to pull the spinnaker back down when we suddenly found ourselves going back upwind. Special thanks to Warren Collier, Jim Schwab, Sidney Brown-Shirley and Ben for sticking out the rain and getting a course set in tough conditions!
I also want to thank Ted Sheldon and company for the fantastic grilled chicken, rice, beans and salad they provided us for dinner last night. I got in late but still managed to get two plates and it was well worth it! (PS I would love to know what seasoning y'all put in the beans). Next dinner will be after race 3! The last story I found out about after the race was that Brad Bowers and crew found out they had one too many crew on the boat last night, After they had gone out already they found a quite large snake on the boat! Make sure y'all pump the bilge before going out ;) For those of y'all that didn't bring your foulies, here's a picture of the sunset you missed after the storm passed. (thanks for sharing the pic Warren!) Let me know if you see any issues with your score! Looking forward to seeing yall next week! _______________________________________________________ These pictures definitely describe the conditions that were prevalent for Sunday’s LARC race. Isn’t this the reason we have a Winter series?
If you were looking for a thrill ride and/or had some old sails to use, this would have been a good day to go sailing. The weather station at LLSC registered 15 mph winds with gusts up to 30 mph. Not a day for new sails or newbies. We had 11 boats registered and we had 3 boats to finish and if you didn’t think the Melges 24 was a boat for all conditions, you haven’t seen their performance. Brent reported that he ripped in old main (thank goodness) in half and the new J-80, Freya, had equipment failures before the race began. It was 13.8 nm course designed by Kent Rogers with a little help from the Melges 24 fleet and it was a race to 11 down to R and back to 11 again. The race took a little over 2 hours to complete by the boats (Melges 24s ) that finished . It was an impressive show and definitely an act of skill. Just a reminder, next Saturday on Feb 3 is the Hot Ruddered Bum by UYC (attached is the NOR and registration form) and the next LARC race is on Sat. Feb 24. Here are the results: 1st M24/ Hermes 2nd M24/ Premature Acceleration 3rd M24/ Uncle! Uncle! Congratulations for completing the race with all of your crew and equipment!! Thanks to David Jackson and Ryan Jones for the great action shots. See you on the race course, Dana ________________________________________________________________ As winter storm Ember raced past us and dumped all its nasty weather on the northeast , we enjoyed a dry but cold day with light winds on this first day of racing. Though many people were concerned with predictions of rain and cold early in the week, the storm zoomed past us quickly on Friday night and Saturday morning and left us with light air, no rain and the promise of more wind as the afternoon progressed. A big thank you to Kent Rogers who set up this 4.2 nm race with a great course that challenged our sailing skills.
Here is the order of the finishes:
Save the dates for upcoming races and regatta in Jan and Feb.
See you on the race course, Dana P.S. Everyone that would like to help make our club regattas even better, please come to the Anchor Committee meeting on Sat. Jan 13 at 2pm at LLSC clubhouse. Refreshments will be provided. ___________________________________________________________ Did we end this series with a bang or a whimper, no we ended this series end with a DRIP. It was a very wet Wednesday night race for everyone involved, but it did end up being an exciting ending for those of us who braved the weather.
Despite our wet and bedraggled condition, we had a great meal waiting for us compliments of chef Wheeler Sutton and his merry band of cooks. But the highlight of the evening was the Keelboat Fleet band that played all evening for us. It was an awesome night of music and a big thanks to organizers/musicians Will Brown and Q, with the addition of the musical talents of Brad Griese, Lee Estes and a few other talented gentlemen. A big thanks to Warren Collier, David Jackson, Doug Early and crew from Your Move for doing race committee for this series. There will be many trophies given out tomorrow night (10/18/23). We will be presenting the LARC trophies for the 2022 Fall series, 2023 Winter series and the 2023 Moonlight series (see attached files). These will be given out in addition to the 2023 Encore series awards. If you are wondering if you are getting a trophy, look at the scores and if you are in the top half of your fleet then your chances are excellent. Please be sure that you have someone from your boat or a friend that will pick up your trophy for you. Look forward to seeing everyone, Dana __________________________________________________________________ |
Results by Month
September 2024
Results by YearScorekeeperDana Stewart | She Devil |
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