J24'S AT LAKE NORMAN

Congrats to Emily Aspland, Hanna Garland, Chip Till, Paul Whitesides, and Kevin Bradley!

Check Chipster's report HERE.

Final Post from 2010 Southern Circuit

Sounds like the Sawyers are looking forward to returning next year - despite the mayhem:

Click here for link to story.

More Lightning Tales from the Southern Circuit

Go to the link: John Does Miami

John and Becky's adventure continues

Thursday: Alligator Alley

The drive over from Miami only involved one argument with the GPS lady but that was the last straw the Brit is now an American. The highlight was the alligators sunning, as Becky says whole families were hangin out. The road side is fenced to keep them off the road when gators get on the road they assume the temperature of the road and go to sleep, fences are a great idea for all of us along alligator alley.

Arrived in St Pete at 2:30 and set up the boat. Fixed a few more things, shopped for groceries and arrived at the club for the competitors meeting and general meeting. Paid fleet 511’s dues again this year, will try to remember to collect this summer. The annual meeting is followed by a potato bar, drink bar and welcoming party at St Pete. Two or three races are planned for tomorrow, but we are under a high pressure and it is not hot enough the produce a sea breeze so the chance is there for a land breeze , sea breeze conflict resulting in little wind.

Staying at the Ponce de Leon hotel for about the 5^th time. It is old but renovated with funky 1930s bathrooms & stuff that does not work half the time; but we love it, the owner / manager is in this hotel for life. The best thing about the Ponce is that it is next door to St Pete and relatively inexpensive. When here, we park the car and walk to everything. 53 boats are registered, and our RC is one of the best.

John Sawyer

14318

No Wind

Race report from yesterday.
No wind today.
On to St Pete.
Here is John's last installment :

Yes we did race.

Tuesday: Sailed three races in Biscayne Bay, beautiful skyline in the background, tropical waters. 41 boats sailed, our finishes were 19,27,14. We finished 19^th overall. First race was in about 8-9 very shifty out of the NNW. Second race was also very shifty with some dead spots. Third race was in the sequence and then postponed due to a wind shift that made the line and first beat poor for the competitors, this happened twice. Race three also had one general recall, we were losing the afternoon, the RC finally got the race started under the black flag, 5 or 6 were over early and DSQ’d. A big shift on the second downwind leg surprisingly did not warrant a course change by the RC and the final windward leg was also a reach, unusual at this racing level.

Even though my crew slandered me and besmirched my stellar reputation in the previous posting, I bought drinks for my crew at the club tiki bar tonight, fortunately we were tired and only had a few drinks. Tomorrow is ladies lunch day at CRYC we have been advised that parking will be limited. Looking forward to mingling with the ladies. Becky says I’ve got it wrong.

Wednesday: Arrived at CRYC at 8am to make some rig adjustments. Weather is overcast light wind, Most boats were launched by stood by for a possible postpone ashore. AP did happen and the wait for wind was on, light rain and no wind persisted all morning, at about 11:30 the RC abandoned the remaining races.

Lessons learned: when the breeze is manageable for you and your crew, with effort you can keep the boat flat, and water is not smooth. The skipper and crew need to move their weight in the boat to kept it flat, steering up, pointing higher to keep it flat is not the way to go.

John

Sawyers on to Miami

After 3 races the Sawyers are in 2oth out of 41.
Not too shabby.

Results

Johns story for the day:

Sunday: Got out of Savannah a little early and stopped at West Marine to replace some of the stuff that is now at the bottom of the Skidaway River. Fortunately none of the sacred parts like mast blocks are missing, if that were the case we would have to do a voodoo ritual, incense etc. to make new mast block that were eggzackly right. Drove as long as possible, had an Italian dinner in a restaurant next to the roadside hotel. Me and a few bikers and a lot of restaurant employees.

Monday: More driving, my GPS wanted me to take toll roads to Miami, I did not agree and we argued several times about it. She is British, I thought maybe a

Proper brit would be more respectful of my wishes but at every possible interchange she would demand that I exit I 95. I finally gave in.

By the way following my British lady through the Miami interchanges was a joke. Arrived at Coral Reef YC late morning and settled in to my spot with the boat. Had a glorious day of fixing stuff on the boat, meeting lightning sailors originally from Australia then Nigeria and now Houston. Coral Reef YC is great , warm and sunny. Crewed for a new Lightning owner in on the water coaching this afternoon in about 15-16 wind, coached by Skip Diebold. I knew I was in trouble when I noticed no vang on the boat, flashback to Savannah, being the guy on the boat with experience, I forced my host into rigging the vang before leaving the harbor.

Retrieved my rock star crew, Becky and son Jack at Miami Airport. This arrangement promises to buy me several get out of Becky jail cards.

Monday (crew version): Late pickup at Miami International. Some excuse about “helping some guy with his vang”. Captain smells like rum and has glitter on his pants. We see a “Gold Club” valet ticket on the dash. Crew has suspicions but we stay quiet. Next stop: the Miami equivalent of the “Heart of Charleston” hotel. Dinner from the vending machine as the captain rants about some Fireball race from the 80’s. I imagine the captain will be ornery tomorrow and want to re-rig the entire boat. Better get some shut-eye…

Tuesday: Our regatta registration includes a big hot breakfast followed by the competitors meeting, racing starts at 11am, three races today.

John Sawyer

14318

OH SAVANNAH

John Sawyer is again doing the Southern Circuit in the Lightning Class.

Love his narratives

--------------------------

From: john sawyer [mailto:johnsawyer@ec.rr.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2010 10:14 PM
To: 'Chip Whitesides'
Subject: Oh Savannah

I’m a little wiped out, but here goes. Around 30 boats participated in this first leg of the southern circuit, that’s lower than normal. The big question was where’s the heat. It was freakin cold Sunday morning. This leg is only 3 races, Saturday wind was SW at 16 gust to 20. Lots of carnage unfortunately. 9 boats capsized including yours truly. Our dirty deed as we call it happened in the second race final downwind run. We still don’t know why for sure, but after getting upright the spreader was severely bent and the vang broken. The safety crew gave us second place to Tommy Allen for time to get back up, Tommy sail out of his capsize and finished mid fleet. New mast tubes are always on the lawn at Savannah Yacht Club, they are not free replacements but if you travel from Canada as some have for the southern circuit and you break your mast it’s good. One broken mast was replaced, three tubes are left. Tom Allen had a few spare spreaders and the part I needed to fix the vang so by 7pm I was back together. Except for the all the #*!()&%$ stuff that came out of the boat when we capsized.

The club roasted oysters for dinner Moose tried to work a deal for snottier oysters , that’s his way of saying not cooked so long. Appetizing thought, and I watched my NC State lose to George Tech with a bunch of GT fans to complete the day from hell.

Sunday: Even the snowbirds are complaining. The wind has not layed down and it is about 50 degrees. I decided not to sail which my crew, shivering with hot coffee in hand loved hearing, they would have sailed but I just did not want to risk another day of damage, within 30 minutes I regretted not sailing. My crew and I assisted on safety boats. Watching the race from the weather mark, the current effect was very interesting. I actually learn some things. The wind did drop and only one boat broke down. If you go to sail, SAIL.

From our district Will Tyner and crew were outstanding, they won the second race and were top ten for all races.

On my way to Miami, more latter.

John Sawyer

14318

PARALYMPICS

Thanks to Anne Allen who as usual is doing her work with the Winter Paralympics in Canada.
See her note and link to live action below.

Hi all,

I am in Vancouver working at the Paralympic Games and just wanted to give you the link / article below so that anyone interested can watch the opening ceremonies tonight and some of the events on the internet beginning tomorrow.. Unfortunately it is not broadcast on TV in the USA, but we have lots of great athletes competing here, and just like during the Olympics, the city is "buzzing" ! Just go to www.ParalympicSport.tv as below. II hope you all are well !

Anne

Race Management Seminar

Students hard at work this weekend at US Sailing Race Management Seminar.
Thanks to John and Gracia Slater for teaching us a bunch of good stuff.

Check out CYC Sailors doing the Heineken Regatta in St Maarten.


http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhmjqjgr_272hpchk2hr