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5:00 PM - The RV is warmed up. I head to Keiths and pick up Keith and Jody. Jody relays a message from Rich: "Kents phone is dead, so remind him that whatever he does, dont let him forget to pick me up". That would be bad, seeing that he is the guy putting on this regatta. Not to worry, we need the extra body to split the gas bill with anyway.

There has been a developing tradition of going to BW3 on the way home from these road trips. This time these guys decide to go for it on the way down. Not the best idea... service was slow, and the results of that sort of diet resulted in a quartet of tooting harmony in the morning. Shouldn't have been a surprise...

Saturday March 14, 2009

7:00 AM Rich and I are first out of the room... everyone is up. Now we are at the lobby trying to enjoy some breakfast. Nick Vitale, John Harper and a few others are already here. Its pretty quiet. No Opti-class kids are in here ... yet.

Saturday 8:38 PM

Hot Tub, shower, and now thinking of eating something somewhere...

Keith gets an honorable mention for the bomb... this is because he got really sick today and ended up not sailing. Poor bastard. He is better now and plans to sail Sunday.

Ice started out really hard, a bit bumpy, but it was easy to hit some good speeds. After the Silver fleet and the Opti Fleet got their races in, the second gold race saw the ice going soft fast. Ohhhh nooo... no it turns into a runner-race. Choose the best runner out of your arsenal for the rapidly deteriorating conditions and you might win a race. Myself I didnt have an arsenal...

Anyway the important thing is we have up to 3 more races Sunday. We are forecasted for very cold temps tonight. We will start out with hard ice in the morning, BUT forecasted for very light air... hmm.

GTIYC members turned came out in the afternoon, and set up a stove, had a pot of chili, and even a folk / bluegrass band. These people always make for a great time when we come up.

Mexican for dinner... lots of beer... tomorrow could be a repeat of today. Hopefully not so much.

Below: Rigging up on Elk Lake

Below Left: Keith is a little under the Weather. Right: Don Williams and Jody Kjoller enjoy first and second positions in the first Silver race.

Below Left: The opti kids relax for a few minutes before racing.

Right : Caroline Sherry helps herself to some Chili.

7:12 AM Sunday:

I am the first one up of the group. I Head to breakfast and George Reis and Nick Vitale are the only ones up before me. Forecast is not good. South-Southwest 3-6. High will be near 50 degrees. I will make every attempt to sail until the ice goes soft, regardless of racing.

3:30 PM We have been on the road headed southward for just under two hours now. Beautiful day, unfortunately very light winds. Too light to get a race in under the time limit.

Reluctantly I rigged up, telling myself this is the last chance to sail for the year. Several people looked at me like I was nuts as I walked out to my boat all suited up. I decided that if nothing else I would practice starts and pushing technique and get some excercise. To my surprise, I was acutally able to reach back and forth with pretty good speed. I even started getting the sail trimmed all the way in and flat sometimes hitting some imipressive speeds. Next thing you know you see lots of sails go up on shore and several people are half-motivated. I came in for a water break, and Ron Sherry flags me down and wants to sail my boat! He wants to see what is going on that gets me going so fast in this stuff. I got to sail his boat too. Pretty cool to swap boats with the Current North American ( and past World) Champion!

The sun got pretty intense and I decided to tear down before the ice got my feet wet. Wind died anyway. Next we had awards at the shelter. Again GTIYC had chili and a warm stove for us. These guys are amazing. What a great club!

The opti kids were the best part of the awards. To see the smiles on their faces... you could tell they were having the time of their lives and making friends.

This was driven home when Griffin Sherry received the first place trophy for the Junior Opti fleet. When everyone yelled "speech!" this youngster delivered by telling us what he loves about sailing. And emphasized that the friends he makes sailing is the best part. Amen Brother! A chip of the old block!

Below : Griffin Sherry shows off some Heavy Metal!

Results :

Opti (Junior) Fleet

1 Griffin Sherry

2 David Winquist

3 Caroline Sherry

4 TJ Sherry

5 Augie Dale-Jewett

7 Cooper Frost

8 Frankie Hearn

Gold Fleet

1 Matt Struble

2 Ron Sherry

3 Jan Gougeon

4 Jim Grogan

5 Chris Clark

6 Kevin Jewitt

7 Rich Lemberg

8 Richard Potcova

9 John Harper

10 George Reis

Silver Fleet

1 Thomas Hamill

2 Julie Richards

3 Doug Harvey

4 Nick Vitale

5 J.P. Carnaghi

6 Don Williams

7 Andy Allen

8 Kyle Metzloff

9 Rosemary Hamill

10 David Frost

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