Clinton Lake Sailing Association, September 14 & 15, 2024

The Glow in the Dark II Regatta is a great event that features lots of food and camaraderie around fires and boats. Many boats attend, usually upwards of 40, and this year was no exception. Regatta Chair Eric Bussell put on a great show, with strong support from Fleet 135 Captian Dan Leach and PRO Geoff Endris (from whom we purchased Gadzooks!).

While we had a decent Race 1, we had an average regatta.  Our starts continue to be our Achilles heel.  We need to improve here.  In every race we started in the second or third row.  In Race 1 we avoided holes, and were able to climb our way to 5th (from a start 17th across the line).  Here are our scores:

Pos	Sail	Boat	Skipper	Yacht Club	1	2	3	4	Total	Pos
1	6137	Silver Bullet	Michael Faugust / Jennifer Ikeda-Faugust	Ephraim Yacht Club/	1	7	1	2	11	1
2	6130	The Kitchen Sink IV	Bruce Kitchen / Lynn Kitchen	Cowan Lake Sailing Association/	2	2	3	7	14	2
3	6125	In the drink	Dave Rink / Joel Blade	Lake Norman Yacht Club/	8	1	4	3	16	3
4	5721	MacBOAT	Mark Johnson / Tom Gleeson	Neenah Nodaway Yacht Club/	9	3	8	1	21	4
5	6187	Brian Pace	Brian Pace / Pamela Pace	Hoover Sailing Club/	11	6	5	5	27	5
6	6099		Mark Taylor / Michele Taylor	CLSA/	4	13	2	9	28	6
7	1482	Morquan	Richard Wojnar	Clinton lake sailing association	3	9	10	8	30T	7
8	4687	Tiller Time	Greg Florian	CLSC/CDYC	7	5	14	4	30T	8
9	6135	Wildcard	Eric Bussell / Perry Cameron	CLSA/CDYC/	6	4	7	23/DNF	40	9
10	3882	Natures Playground	BRETT EICKENBERG / Alexandre EICKENBERG	Sheridan Shores Yacht Club/	13	10	6	13	42	10
11	5954	Gadzooks!	Kevin Kunz / Kendall Kunz	Lafayette Sailing Club (Fleet #2)/	5	14	15	11	45	11
12	4788	Nauti-Lass	Grace OHare / Hunter Damron	Lake Monona Sailing Club/	12	8	18	14	52	12
13	4300	Asta	Eric Sutton / Peggy Pick-Sutton	CSA/	16	19	12	6	53	13
14	2950		Peter Sobol / Emily Dean	Lake Monona sailing club/	14	16	13	12	55	14
15	6259	Grace	james crabtree / Tommy Stewert	CCSA/	18	12	17	10	57	15
16	6266		Mike Ekberg / Rad Hawkos	Lake Monona Sailing Club/	15	11	9	23/DNF	58	16
17	1470	GOD and Country	John Cassada / Nancy Claypool	Carlyle Sailing Association/	10	18	16	15	59	17
18	864	Nessie	Quinn Link / Fiona Rickels	Lake Monona Sailing Club/	17	17	11	17	62	18
19	4071	Second Wind	James Jilek / Gene Vogel	Neenah Nodaway Yacht Club	19	15	19	16	69	19
20	5394	None	Chic Clark	Indianapolis Sailing Club	20	20	20	23/DNF	83	20
21	3259	Sally Forth	Sally Morriss / StanCarlos Graham	BSC/	23/DNC	23/DNC	23/DNF	23/DNC	92T	21
21	6177	Scotty McFly	Ryan Malmgren / Stacey Rieu	Ephraim Yacht Club/	23/DNC	23/DNC	23/DNC	23/DNC	92T	21

We did beat Dave & Joel in Race 1, which now means we have beaten everyone at the top of the class in a race except the pros (Linton, Horwitz & Ames) and Faugust.  Our system is obviously good, however, it still needs help, and we need to avoid big mistakes which (mostly I am) making.

In Race 1 I got confused what tack I was on and put ourselves in a bind jibing across into Tiller Time (Greg Florian) on Port when I thought we were on starboard.  Big mistake. But even after 50 years mistakes can be made.

I also noticed that in at least one race we did not tack on several headers — at least 6.  This will leave us behind.  Here’s a picture of our path in Race 2:

We did discuss the first header and agreed to take it.  The other 5 we did not.  Post-race the teams were talking about a big lefty always being present near the mark.  The path above does not really support that, unless it was closer to the mark than the path indicates.

Also, in the 2nd downwind leg, Mark Taylor got by us.  How?  Off in the puffs, up in the lulls.  I forgot a basic lesson for downwind!  😦

In Race 3, the rivet at the end of the spinnaker pole broke and the end spun on the pole.  This prevented Kendall from taking down the spinnaker in a timely fashion, and then I compounded the problem by letting go of the guy and pointing down.  We ended up going past the gate by 100 yards, then had to beat back to the gate, round it, and continue forth.  The fortunate part was that the race was 3x around, allowing us to make up some lost positions.  (I should have pulled the guy in hard, forcing the spinnaker into the jib slot, and turned into the gate, and worried about dousing once the pole was loose.  The spinnaker would have slowed us down, but not put us past the gate, and we would have lost a couple of positions, not all of them.)  I have now added a second rivet to each end of the spin pole, and discussed it with Tyler Andrews and he has agreed to start adding a second rivet to the pole ends.

In Race 4 we struggled with light winds, which is not unusual, but this regatta had wind patches and holes.  We were on the lookout for them, but couldn’t really capitalize on them.  We initially went left, then crossed the fleet to the right on a header we agreed to take to stay in the wind when the rest of the fleet came back left and left us in the dust.  The race was shortened to 1x around, leaving us mid-fleet.

If you want to see the videos, here’s the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBtfV1bdnJYJKz98lGn-67Q_PeLRlcIZ9.

In short, here are our weak points:

1. Starts.
2. Taking too many headers for too long.
3. Equipment failure compounded by improper boat handling on my part.
4. Light wind shifts and wind splits in the course.

Clearly, 1, 2, and 3 we can do something about now; #4 will take more experience in determining when to tack to stay in the wind.  Certainly we can consistently cover, even mid-fleet or top third.

There are a couple of interesting points:

A) As we discussed with Dave Rink, your regatta performance is defined by your worst race, not your best.

B) Mitigating errors is crucial to success.  You’re going to make mistakes — everyone does — lessen the impacts of your mistakes.

Next up is our trip to Detroit for the Mallory Cup, and then the weekend after is the Kentucky Bourbon Regatta on Kentucky Lake. Hope to see you a that one!