I think the best comment of the night was when I spoke to the awesome 2 person RC of Ted and Dora McGee (what a finely honed team) and we discussed the possibility of rain and storms.  Ted’s comment to me was “Rain is not going to bother me”.  I was in love with our fearsome and experienced RC and knew he would make safe decisions.

We had lower attendance in this race but the threat of rain probably kept many people at home, but it paid off to those of us that decided to stick it out.   We had great weather and a beautiful sunset.
We had several ties coming in to this last race and the competition was close.  In the Small sport fleet, no one had won more than one race, so with a throw out the game was on.  Ex-Kahn pulled ahead of the fleet by taking a first in the last race.  Renegade continues to dominate the Low PHRF fleet.  Walter Addison, new owner of refurbished J-27, sailed the wheels off his boat in his first series to take a 2nd in the Mid PHRF fleet.  Congratulations Walter. 

In the High PHRF fleet the Red Baron (Breeze) flew around the race course for this last race and really shook up the fleet.  Bill the Cat finished 19 seconds behind his dad with our new contender, High Voltage, racing to 3rd place in this last race. 

There was some excellent racing in this last race of the series in the competitive Cruiser fleet.  Tween’r revved up his crew and sailed to his second first of the series and our own Randy Phillips raced his new Beneteau to 2nd place.

The first race of the second series will be Wed, July 8.  I hope everyone has a very “social distant” holiday.

Thank you everyone for making this come-back to racing so successful.  Watch for news about trophies and upcoming events.

Happy 4th of July,   Dana

Let me reiterate our thanks to our unsung heroes, Race Committee. Week one on June 3 was Mark Turner and family, then on week two was Bill Overend and members of J-24, High Voltage and last week was Randy Phillips and his excellent band of reprobates.

We had our first general recall of the season and not too unusual for a fleet of 9 boats. As usual the wind was shifty and large pockets of dead air were all around waiting to trap the unsuspecting sailor. This night tested every sailor out there; did you tack on a 10, 20, 30 degree shifts or take the hit and continue on your planned course. You roll the dice and hope for the best.

This game we play can often be quite agonizing and hard on the crew. A couple of weeks ago, my crew called me CRANKY. I was quite upset that I might have let this game we play make me irritable. Wearing a mask makes me irritable, sailing doesn’t. 

We now have 2 races under our belt and 1 more to go in our abbreviated Series One, which will end next Wednesday, June 24thand after a hiatus of 2 weeks (one Wednesday) Series Two will begin on July 8th.
We have some very competitive races going on all the fleets. In the cruiser fleet, Kirk Jockell is winning but there is only 1 point separating each of the top 3 boats. Spencer Gay and Kurt Schurenberg will be pushing Kirk hard in this last race. The High PHRF fleet is being dominated by Jonathan Stewart and his “Bill the Cat” team. But the real fight will be between the two J-24’s, Breeze and She-Devil. I can only hope that the Devil takes out the Red Baron again in this last race. It will be Stewart vs Stewart vs Stewart. Let best looking Stewart win!!

The Mid PHRF fleet is being led by the team of Chris and David (sorry about your broken arm) Jackson. Linda Webster has a good hold on second place while our new J-27 sailor, Walter Addison and his boat, Reckless Abandon are securely in third. Low PHRF is a tough race between Jeff Freeman on his Flying Tiger and Mike Macleod with his newly purchased Elliott 770 from the estate of our long-time sailor friend, Greg Bell. 

The Small Sport fleet consisting of Melges 24’s have a couple of contests occurring within the fleet. Second place will be a tough race between Gary Umberger and Brent McKenzie. There is a tie for fifth place between Morang/Lenkeit and Tony Stanley and then there is the battle for seventh place with Cellamare/Harbin and Pat Finnick. A very, very active and competitive fleet. Good luck to you all.

​Upcoming Keelboat events:
Wed, June 24 Race 1-4 (last race series 1) 
Sat, June 27 Moonlight race by BFSC (this will be the first of 3 remaining races)
Wed, July 8 Race 2-1 (first of 10 races of series 2)

Just a reminder that all LARC races (Winter, Moonlight & Fall series) are free to anybody that is a member of one of the 4 sailing clubs on Lake Lanier. Attached will be the NOR/SI for the LARC 2020 series of races.

Don’t forget to send any pics from our races to me, so that we can post them on the website. We have seen some great sails and sunsets. 

Look forward to seeing you on the race course,
Dana