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
​                  _________________________________________________________________