TIYC Season 2008-2009
Lake Wawasee, Indiana Saturday, January3, 2009.
Nice Ice with up to 1" drifts on 30% of the surface. Drifts were hard and crunchy. Winds were 15-25 mph. plenty of wind to drive through the snow, but the ability to foot off, definitely paid dividends in speed.
There were about 36 boats on the lake. Around 25 of them were DN's scrub-racing on a 7/8 mile course. 10 TIYC Sailors Raced, 1 Visited, and 2 TIYC support people were there.
TIYC REGATTA SEASON FINALLY BEGINS!
Saturday, February 21 2:30 PM Sand Lake : Race Committee, Jeff "Flip" Phillips ran 3 races for four boats in between snow showers. It is now official that there has been a Club race for 2009. More Weather is coming so everyone decided to head home before the snow gets too bad. Jody and I are contemplating leaving the boats rigged and seeing if we can sail more today or even tomorrow. We will give a report if it looks good.
4:00 PM: Flip spent the last hour or so trying to get off of Pentecost Highway as the van he borrowed that he towed the trailer here with, had no weight in it to make it up the hills with all this snow. We loaded runners out of our trailer into the back of the van and hopefully that did the trick. I guess we might not find out unless we go looking for him... his phone died too.
Below: It takes optimism to rig in this kind of weather...
SAND LAKE Saturday 2/28/2009
9 DN's sailed 5 Races in the morning for the Meilink.
In the afternoon a tenacious 4 stuck around for the Greiner Open. 3 Races were held before the wind died off.
We also had two Nites, a Skimmer, a Skeeter, and P/C Chris Frederick rigged his 15 meter this afternoon.
Ice is very nice, very hard with some cobblestone areas, but overall not too bad.
Above: Race committee between races. Below: Hot Dogs on the Grill!
TIYC REGATTA SEASON FINALLY BEGINS!
Saturday, February 21 2:30 PM Sand Lake : Race Committee, Jeff "Flip" Phillips ran 3 races for four boats in between snow showers. It is now official that there has been a Club race for 2009. More Weather is coming so everyone decided to head home before the snow gets too bad. Jody and I are contemplating leaving the boats rigged and seeing if we can sail more today or even tomorrow. We will give a report if it looks good.
4:00 PM: Flip spent the last hour or so trying to get off of Pentecost Highway as the van he borrowed that he towed the trailer here with, had no weight in it to make it up the hills with all this snow. We loaded runners out of our trailer into the back of the van and hopefully that did the trick. I guess we might not find out unless we go looking for him... his phone died too.
Below: It takes optimism to rig in this kind of weather...
Below: Race Committee is a tough job. We fed Flip a couple of hot dogs and he was out... once he woke up, he looked at the snow and called racing off for the rest of the day. Like some sort of groundhog... or something. Nice pants, huh?
Below: Rob Linden and Jody Kjoller relax after racing.
Below: L-R "Flip", "Dusty" Don Williams, George Reis
SAND LAKE Sunday 2/29/2009
Wind was up and gusty out of the North. Race Committee forgot the key to the trailer. Fortunately, we were able to contact Bob and Ann Foeller who was able to swing back and get the key since they had just left the point.
Now with our skippers meeting delayed an hour, we watched as some sailors we hadnt seen all year rig up. Dave Zoll, the Gladieux Brothers, and Jeff MacKay were amongst the rare-bird sightings.
There were 5 DNs racing a total of 5 races. Rob Holman took the days honors with bullets in 4 of 5 races.
Damage Report: Nothing major today. Jody Kjoller Experienced an insert runner becoming "un-inserted" this one will be worth a mention on the "bomb report" at the meeting. Bob Foeller's Nite suffered a damaged boom.
The DN Central Region Championships
Held at Elk Lake, Traverse City Area.
Friday March 13, 2009
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