What a build up to the end of the Wednesday night race season. This next to last Wednesday night race was everything we expect from a Fall race. It was whitecapping in areas as we went out to the race course, but as predicted it settled down to a nice breeze with gusts that kept us on our toes this evening. As usual for an easterly wind, it was shifty and made you pay close attention to what was going on around you. You missed an interesting spectacle if you didn’t get to watch the start of the Low PHRF fleet. It was a lot of fun to watch.
As usual our race committee of David Jackson, Warren Collier, Christian Koerner, and Mary Lyons did an excellent job setting up a course and shortening some of the fleets just at the right time. Thanks to Will Brown and Mary Lyons for setting up the meal and making sure the kitchen was clean. Next week will be chili and dogs. Next Wednesday will be our last evening race of the 2021, but don’t forget the Encore awards celebration on Wednesday, Oct 20 starting about 6pm. Attached is the Race results and the overall fleet standings. See you on the race course, Dana _____________________________________________________________________________ Waaa-hooooo was heard all over the race course this evening as everyone welcomed this new weather pattern that blew in after our week of rain. I heard a lot of talk about whether we were going to get wet this evening and then instead of putting on their foul weather tops (as usual) they put on their foul weather bottoms. This was going to be a different weather condition than the previous night.
A big thanks to our recurring and excellent race committee on Wednesday night. I don’t know what they had to sacrifice to the wind gods to get the abundance of wind last night, but I think they overdid it!! Thank you to David Jackson, Warren Collier, Mary Lyons (excellent job on getting it all down on paper), Christian Koerner, Blaine McCaleb, and Ted Sheldon for a creative race course. Wednesday night dinners get better and better each week, thanks to our culinary specialist, Will Brown, and his team. Will wants me to announce that dinner will be served for an hour after the last boat finishes, after that then seconds will be offered to those discerning sailors. Will has also announced the upcoming menu. Next week (#3) will be a potato bar with all types of creative fixings (I can’t wait to hear, “I never thought of putting that on a potato”), week #4 will my famous lasagna (straight from the recipe on the box), and then week #5 will be Will Brown’s famous chili and the many things you can put chili on. Get your stomach ready for some culinary treats. I would like to congratulate some new race winners this week, Mike Harrington in High Cruiser and Patrick Vrana in the Mid PHRF fleet. I hope I see you at the LARC race on Sunday, skip meet at 11am Aqualand. Dana _______________________________________________________________________ I think the thing that stood out in this race besides the gorgeous day and very shifty wind was the start. Normally a pursuit start is pretty relaxed because almost everybody starts at a different time but today there were a lot of people in the starting area long before their starting time and there seemed to be a lot boats trying to sail in the same small area. It was the trickiest start I have experienced in a pursuit race and lots of fun. As we raced to “C”, it looked like we were all going to round “C” to starboard at the same time. From the comments made after the race, there was some contretemps at the windward mark, but once the spinnakers were up, the fleet started to spread out and raced to E.
A big thanks to Tedd Meinersmann and the BFSC for getting us started on this gorgeous Fall afternoon. We had a record number of boats that came out to enjoy this second race of the series. The next race will be on Sunday Oct 17 sponsored by UYC. Here is the order of the finishes, Note we have a new boat on the lake, Slingshot a C&C 99, owned by Kent Rogers. Congratulations Kent.
Attached is the results according to fleet. I might mention that the scores would have been done earlier, but several people were unsure of their finish time. See you on the race course, Dana _____________________________________________________________________________ “I’m singing in the rain, I’m sailing in the rain, what a glorious feeling I’m happy again” (probably a misquote, but I had you singing, didn’t I); now you know how it felt to be sailing in this lovely wind IN THE RAIN. There was a lot of splashing and dripping and collisions and marks that were flattened at the finish (you know who you are) in this first race of the fall Wednesday night series called Encore.
A super big thanks to our temporary culinary specialist, Jonathan Stewart, for the excellent Shephard’s pie (or Cottage pie to those purists), garlic bread and salad. We saw several visitors at the guest dock and was excited at the attendance on this rainy evening. Thanks to our rainy day race committee of David Jackson, Warren Collier, Mary Lyons, Christian Koerner, and Jim Failmezger. It is difficult and easy to do RC in the rain. Difficult because of the rain many boats did not have sails up until necessary and others were using different sails than #’s than what was registered and of course easy because that had SHELTER. Having said that, I have a number of sail #’s reported by RC, that I have no record of. Please contact me if you were using one of the sail #’s listed here: (1) sail # 42178 (2) 541 (3) 721 Attached are those that I have identified so far. See you on the race course, Dana _________________________________________________________________________ A big thanks to Jim Chambers who provided our Pursuit course and even took a Postponement and Abandonment flags on his boat (just in case). The weather leading up to this weekend was excellent and I hoped it would continue. But I personally think the “Thistle” fleet, who had a regatta this weekend, didn’t pay the wind gods enough money and the wind cooperated enough for them to finally get a race completed (for those patient enough) on Sunday morning. But we were fortunate that by our start time of 1pm, we had a nice little wind that started to kick up in the vicinity of B and those of us with our sails up, raced to X which was our SF-short finish mark at 2pm. David Pope, in his Ultimate 20 (single-handing, smart man), managed to NOT make it by the SF time and we all sighed with relief that the race was over. We had gotten lucky to ride one of Lake Lanier’s wild wind patterns to short finish this race.
Attached is the order of finishes (I think part of the fun of a Pursuit race is chasing down the boats ahead of you). David Pope- Ultimate 20-Orbit Dana Stewart- She-Devil Walter Addison- Reckless Jim Chambers- Wind Spinner Spencer Gay- Revelry David Jackson- Your Move Kathy Paes- Taka Because the start times are based on longer distances, the corrected times for each boat in his/her fleet is attached: Our next Fall race will be sponsored by BFSC on Sunday Sept 26. Look forward to seeing you on the race course, Dana ________________________________________________________________________ Future: The Encore series begins Wednesday Sept 15, with Cruiser start at 6:15 and Fleet 1 start at 6:30. This series is included in your Wednesday night registration. We will have meals every week and an awards party on Wednesday Oct. 20.
Jonathan Stewart will be acting as our temporary resident chef this week and will be preparing Shephard’s Pie. Please come join us after the race for some great meals. Again, we welcome everyone that docks elsewhere to stop at our courtesy docks and join us for dinner at the clubhouse. Past: We had a great awards dinner last week along with the trophy ceremony and the great music provided by Ben Rogers. It was a wild night starting with a nice storm brewing in the vicinity. We were served a fantastic meal by Greg Cash and Darryl Lanier along with many other volunteers, a big thanks to all these volunteers that made this such an incredible meal and cleaned the kitchen to my mother’s standards. Warren did an excellent job as our moderator as well as the 3 Vanna’s, Heather, Terra and Ann, who passed out the trophies as well as the sail bags that were donated by Hunter Riddle of Schurr Sails filled with coozies. The theme of this series of trophies was “This is beer can racing”. Winners won Rtic cups and Rtic soft coolers along with a case of beer (as close as I could get) to the Fleet Champions. Congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks to all skippers and crews that made this an exciting sailing season with the best attendance in many years. Look forward to seeing you on the race course, Dana ___________________________________________________________________________ All things come to he/she who waits and boy did we wait. It has been an incredible summer so far, 3 hurricanes in the area so far and little to no wind on several Wednesday nights. This has been the most unusual Wednesday night sailing season for many years. This last race was a tough night, one side had better pressure but the other side had better shifts. It was difficult if you chose the wrong side, but thrilling to be sailing in wind again.
A big thanks to our race committee who brought the wind and ended our season with a bang; Robin Terrell, Tricia Terrell, Chris Beisner, Damian Beisner, Dale Owens, Sophie Webster and Rick Smith. We appreciate everyone’s patience through this struggle to complete this 10 week series. A quick note about the upcoming Wed Series 1 and 2 awards banquet. We will provide excellent food (thank you Greg Cash and Darryl Lanier), live entertainment (McCarthy will not be reading poetry, but we will have live music), and the most awesome awards, but this will be BYOB. We were lucky enough to be given some great items by the sailmaker, Schurr Sails, to all registrants in the Wednesday night series (thank you Jonathan Stewart). So please make sure your boat is represented at the awards if you cannot be there. But I surely hope I will see everyone this Wednesday, it will be a great gathering and an opportunity to mingle with your fellow Wednesday night sailors/competitors that we haven’t had since 2019. The other side of the coin is we still have to be vigilant about protecting ourselves, so let’s take whatever precautions necessary. On Sept. 15, we will begin the 5 week Encore Wednesday night series. The cruisers will start at 6:15 and the rest of the fleets will start at 6:30. We will be sending the Encore SI/NOR on Tuesday. For those of who knew Penny Chinik the following link will show you her obituary and information on services. Penelope Eileen Pawling Chinik Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information (flaniganfuneralhome.com) https://www.flaniganfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Penelope-Eileen-Chinik/#!/Obituary I look forward to seeing everyone Wednesday night, Dana _____________________________________________________________________________ Thanks to Race Committee of Jim Rapp, Spencer Gay, Caden Bautten, Jim Failmerger, Norm Barnes and Tom Graham for their best efforts on this ninth night of the second series. We have one more race to go and there will only be one throw out for this series. The hurricane weather gave us some great sailing weekends (who expects that in July and August) but really disappointed us on Wednesdays.
I have a sad report, Jim Chinik owner of a Beneteau named Baiser Francais, one of the High PHRF fleet members, lost his wife to cancer on Saturday. Penny was a very supportive and an active member of the Keelboat fleet. We send our condolences to Jim on the loss of his wife who was a valued member of Lake Lanier Sailing Club. Upcoming events: Series 1 and 2 awards dinner/party at 6pm on Wed Sept 8 Encore series race #1 Wed Sept 15 LARC Fall series race #1 Sun Sept 12 with Skip Meet at 11am Aqualand store Fingers crossed for the last race, Dana _______________________________________________________________________________ It was a fabulous night, I couldn’t stop smiling all night (I was quite calm when my crew put my spinnaker up as a pennant)!! It was a perfect night to be sailing under the moonlight with a balmy evening and very little motorboat traffic. This is the kind of night that makes the summer moonlight race something special. I think Pat Finnick (who decided to check out mark 11) was probably the only one that got to see the fireworks at the Margaritaville on his way back to the dock. Congratulations to everyone for making this a great event (barring hurricanes).
For those of you that wanted to know what boats they passed in the dark, here is the order of the finishes. Linda Webster 9:17:10 Chris Jackson 9:26:40 Francois Rivard 9:27:00 Cole Woener and the GT crew 9:28:27 She-Devil 9:36:04 Spencer Gay 9:37:17 Taka 9:38:00 Norman Plotkin 9:42:50 Jim Chambers 9:47:30 Overall results are attached and upcoming email will address trophies. Upcoming LARC Fall series, skipper’s meeting at 11am at Aqualand for all races. #1 Sun Sept 12 #2 Sun Sept 26 by BFSC #3 Sun Oct 17 by UYC #4 Sat Nov 13 by LLSC See you on the race course, Dana ____________________________________________________________________________ Did you bring your bathing suit? This was the night for all our cute bikini-wearing sailors to strut their stuff. The most common sight this evening was all the people in the water floating behind their boats. Life jackets have a variety of uses.
I brought foul weather gear but no bathing suit (ha, what was I thinking!). Race committee of Mike Iuvone, Paul Stouffer, Pat Finnick and Daniel Postel searched diligently for the wind. I even thought I heard some change being thrown into the water in eager hopes of appeasing the wind gods this evening. It was fortunate that most of the bad weather associated with Hurricane Fred had quickly traveled past us Wednesday morning. But all that it left was no wind and hot, humid temperatures. We all gave our motors a workout this evening, waiting for something to happen. But we were disappointed again this week. Two more races to go and next week we will have dinner. Our culinary specialist, Will Brown, will be preparing tacos and fixings for dinner with a pan of chicken tetrazzini for those that loved the last dinner. Upcoming events: Last Moonlight race Sat, Aug 21 Series 1 and 2 awards dinner/party at LLSC clubhouse Wed, Sept 8 at 6pm. LARC fall series begins on Sun, Sept 12 with skipper’s meeting at 11am at Aqualand. Encore race #1 starts on Wed, Sept 15 with a 6:15 start for cruisers 6:30 begins fleet 1 See you on the race course, Dana _____________________________________________________________________________ I think the boy scout motto “Be prepared!” applies to our race this week. Many people were congregating on the point, wondering about the weather and what the race committee was going to do when we saw the RC barge leave the dock. We then began to see a trickle of competitors following behind them. It became obvious that we were going to have a race. It stopped thundering about 6:20 and though there was not much wind, it is always best to “be prepared”. So those of us who don’t mind sailing in the rain started heading for their boats.
Often, after a rain the wind dwindles to nothing. This evening began that way but in typical Lake Lanier style, the wind picked up and of course shifted dramatically after the start of the Mid PHRF fleet to give us a great ride for the remainder of the evening. Thanks to the intrepid race committee of Jeff and Cathy Freeman, David Wright, David Schenck, Rob Jones, Tom Graham, Eugene O’Donald, and Mike Tataris. They came, they saw and they conquered. This was a tough call by RC and I thought they did an exceptional job of pulling off a race when very few thought it would happen. I hope everyone enjoyed the homemade chicken tetrazzini that Will Brown cooked and served this week. This was an exceptional meal made by our master culinary specialist. We will have our last meal in two weeks after race #9 and then we can look forward to the scrumptious meal being planned by Greg Cash and Darryl Lanier for the awards party. With 2 tropical systems bearing down on us the next week, make sure you bring your foulies and “be prepared” for anything. See you on the race course, Dana _______________________________________________________________________________ Happy Windsday (compliments of Strega’s crew). I hope everyone enjoyed this incredible evening of racing, this is what we love about Wednesday nights.
It was an exciting night of wind and what a pleasant surprise after the last 2 races. Because of the dramatic wind shift and the feeling that a storm was gathering after the Low PHRF fleet started, the other fleets had totally new sailing conditions. We all had to shift gears from our light air race tactics to this shifty, gusty and a wild ride we were experiencing. You had to use all the tools in your box to keep the boat under control while still trying to pass your competitors. Crew weight can often hurt you in light air, but it significantly helped in races like tonight. Just a reminder that we need more volunteers for race committee, go to website LLSCKeelboat.com or contact Jonathan Stewart at (770-598-4346) or jstewart1224@gmail.com. Excellent job by race committee members; Linda Webster, Brent McKenzie, Reid Collins, Sean, Lisa and Muriel A big thanks goes to our commentator tonight, Linda Webster. Great job on keeping everyone informed. Scoring: Just a reminder that once we have completed 4 races we will get a throw-out. Next week is an odd number race and we will have a home cooked meal prepared by our culinary specialist, Will Brown. He will be making chicken tetrazzini, so I hope everyone joins us at the clubhouse after the next race for this fabulous meal. Make sure you put Wed, Sept 8 on your calendar because we will have an awards banquet for Wed Series 1 & 2 races, starting at 6pm at the LLSC clubhouse. We will have live entertainment, excellent trophies, and a meal prepared by our Cruiser fleet members of Greg Cash (Impetuous) and Darryl Lanier (Old Gator) of pulled pork and ribs. Just a reminder that the last LARC Moonlight race will be on Sat, August 21. You will get an email reminder the week before. See you on the race course, Dana _______________________________________________________________________________ Happy Wild Weather Wednesday! The only thing predictable in the last month was that it was going to rain. If you made it a whole day without rain, then that was a great day. I thought this was going to be one of those days, but I was sadly disappointed.
If someone up there didn’t want us to race this night he/she did a good job of discouraging us. First, it starts to rain as we motor/sail to the starting area. Then the rain quits and it looks like we are going to have some wind and they start the cruisers. The cruisers make it halfway to the windward mark when the Melges 24’s start and then Wild Weather Wednesday showed its ugly face with a 60+ degree windshift followed by a complete shut down of the wind. The RC abandoned the race at this juncture and I appreciate their announcement over the radio. Thank you to the RC committee volunteers, Jim Chambers, Randy Baker, Ken Blankenship, Bob Bumgarden, Linda Hoopes and John McCarthy. They did a great job in recognizing that this evening was going to be painful, if allowed to continue. I want to remind everyone that we will have dinner served at LLSC clubhouse after the next race. If you are docked at another marina, we invite you to park your boat at our ramp/guest docks and walk to the clubhouse for dinner. Will Brown will be serving burgers and brats after this next race.. Another reminder that we need more race committee volunteers and we would be also happy to accept volunteers to make a Wednesday dinner. For RC, please contact Jonathan Stewart (770-598-4346), jstewart1224@gmail.com or sign up on the website https://www.llsckeelboat.com/rcinfo.html. See you on the race course, Dana _______________________________________________________________________________ We sailors or should I say some sailors are made of very tough stuff. The predictions for race time were not looking good and because we have had thunder/lightning every day for the last week, I was not sure how this evening would go. But as I looked out over the water at 5-6 pm, conditions looked like they were going to be good this night.
So I set a long course hoping the wind that was present at 6 pm would continue during the race. It looked pretty good until the beginning of the pursuit starting sequence at 8pm and then it began to rain. The wind started to fail as the night crawled on and the boats ended up short finishing at H. Here is the order of the finishers:
The next and last Moonlight race will be on Saturday, Aug 21 with a 98% full moon with moonrise at 8:14pm. I will send a reminder email the week before this last Summer race. See you on the race course, Dana ________________________________________________________________________________ One of the best ways to understand all the signals and horns you hear on a race course is to volunteer to do race committee. We had great weather conditions to train RC members on this evening and many of the volunteers had not seen a race from this perspective. I would like to thank my crew, Heather Temske, Terra Bowers, Ann Howard, and Neil Harris. I would also like to thank Leigh Ann Collier, Connor Flannagan, Greg Manning, Noah, Kathy, Maya, and Kelly for all their hard work.
I want to give a special thanks to our culinary specialist, Will Brown and his able UGA assistant, Rose Mazzotta. They had the dubious pleasure of cooking the first meal in the kitchen in almost 1 ½ years. They had to prewash everything, cook and then wash everything again. They served a fabulous meal of spaghetti with meat sauce, penne pasta with alfredo sauce, salad, garlic bread and cookies. I was very excited to see all the visitors at the guest docks that came to share the meal. I enjoyed seeing the many new faces. We will have brats and burgers in 2 weeks after race #5 on Wednesday, Aug 4. I think most people were as surprised as me that we had such nice conditions this evening. I felt like Mother Nature gave us a nice present. As we approached sunset the wind velocity increased, but then as soon as I began a starting sequence the wind direction began to clock in an easterly direction, turning my beautiful windward /leeward race course into a reach/ reach. I think the big decision of the night was whether and how long to put up the spinnaker. As so often happens, the wind conditions changed dramatically from the cruiser start to the start of fleet 4. But I was quite happy that rain or storms did not mar our enjoyable evening. See you next week, Dana ________________________________________________________________________________ RC committee of Gary Umberger and Mark Turner did a good job of watching the weather and making the appropriate call of cancelling the race on this night. It was exceptional that we have had 11 races without any serious weather issues until this last race before the break. Though we all have to make our own decisions about whether to race, it helps when RC keeps our safety at the top of their list.
Once again, please contact Jonathan Stewart (jstewart1224@gmail.com) if you would like to be primary or secondary race committee. We have 8 more races to conduct. If you are not experienced, Jonathan can pair you with someone who can take the lead. I look forward to seeing everyone at the next race and looking forward to the delicious dinner Will Brown will prepare for us after the race. Dana _________________________________________________________________________________ Special thanks to our race committee of Mike Stewart, Rachael Green, Jeff Lehman, Doug Early, Mike Wroblewski, Mike Krantz and Rebecca Barkley. They had a very easy time on the barge tonight (if you call finishing 40 boats easy) with winds the stayed a pretty steady 6-8 knots and if you were lucky you found the couple of spots that had a little more pressure (they were few and far between).
We had a strong east wind that sent us to “T” mark and we needed to use all of our knowledge of the cove to make to the windward mark in front of our competitors. Though we still had quite a few motorboats and a couple of monster boats fly through our course on the way to “D”, we had enough wind to push through their wakes. Just a reminder to please limit radio calls to RC during the race except for notifying them of your retirement or if you need assistance. Please familiarize yourself with RC flags and their meaning. It would also help RC keep track of finishers if you do not cross the start/finish line after you have finished. I would like to congratulate Captain Dangerous for staying on the boat this week and I would also like to congratulate the winners of series 1. Low Cruiser- Bailey White Greg Cash Spencer Gay High Cruiser- Kurt Schurenberg Alex Mazurek Norman Plotkin Small sport- Brent McKenzie Davis Macleod Gary Umberger Tony Cellamare/Ben Harbin Low PHRF- John Guy/Jonathan Stewart John McCarthy Jeff Freeman Mid PHRF- Jim Kingery David Jackson Chris Webster High PHRF- Kyle Meyhoefer Dana Stewart Mark Turner LLSC Jrs/Damien Beisner Trophies will be given for Series 1 and 2 on Wed. September 8, 2021. We will have food and music at the LLSC Clubhouse that evening. Look forward to seeing you on the race course, Dana _________________________________________________________________________________ A big thanks to race committee members Mike and April Macleod, Davis Macleod, Melissa Meyhoefer, Brad Busker, Dave Lewis, Dan Dashell, and Tina for all the hard work needed to complete this last race of Series 1.
This night was all about paying attention to the details. Every square foot of every leg had dozens of shifts. When you are the last fleet to start, you get to watch all the other fleets start and watch their tactics going upwind. You could tell that this was a challenging evening for racers when you see 3 boats on the same tack but all pointing at extremely different compass headings. You hope you pick the line that gives you the most favorable shifts (if there was one). Take a look at the final scores for Series 1 and answer the following questions:
I look forward to seeing everyone next week for the first race of series 2. Dana __________________________________________________________________________________ What a splendid day it was. 8 to 10 from the West and perfect temperature. Congratulations to the winners and make sure you set your calendars for the 3rd race day October 23. Sail Fast and hope to see you next Wednesday Night for the 10th race in that series. Randy Phillips _______________________________________________________________________________
Thanks to the race committee team of Darryl Lanier , Tom Graham and company for finding a way to complete a race this night. This was a difficult night for RC, storms all week, inconsistent winds, and a difficult wind direction. These are all challenging factors for any race committee team.
This race committee team sent us to B, which seldom is used. It made for an interesting race and despite the short distance of .38 nm, you still had to deal with tricky wind and the usual Lake Lanier shifts. But it seemed like one of the most important factors in winning this race was being able to navigate through all the traffic on this short course. It was unfortunate that the Melges 24’s rounded the leeward gate just as the High PHRF was about to start. Those that started at the pin end of the starting line had to compete with the boats who were rounding the leeward gate. And then once you made it past the starting line, then you had to deal with the oncoming Low PHRF fleet. In the end, we all needed to brush up on our Rules of the Road. The race to be the fleet champion has been heating up and it looks like we will have some new faces on the podium at the Series I and II awards ceremony on Wed. Sept. 8 at 7pm at the LLSC clubhouse. Next week will be the last race of Series 1 and Series 2 will begin the next week. We will have the first and second races of Series 2 and then we will have a break on July 7th and will resume racing with race #3 on Wed July 14. See you next week, Dana __________________________________________________________________________________ |
Results by Month
May 2024
Results by YearScorekeeperDana Stewart | She Devil |