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August 22, 1999

Dear Friends in Sailing,

If you raced this week, you got your money’s worth. A light to medium wind, with holes made for more lead changes than a Red Sox game with the finishers taking between an hour and an hour and forty minutes. The race committee demanded overtime for a job well done.

After consulting with the principals involved (Ivan Bush, Joe Guaraldo and Cliff Eames), we will keep the staggered start for the rest of the year and record times with the cats as the base and +5 and +10 behind the times for the other divisions.

Our web site address is now LIMYRU.COM. No excuses for you two fingered typists not to visit the site on a regular basis.

Our end of the year race and awards picnic is just two weeks away. Those of you with permanent award plaques, please take them to Atlantic Awards for an update so that they are ready for the picnic. Anyone not doing so may be eligible for an office position for next year.

This week’s race highlights include-

-Doug Kell Jr. and myself in the smallest boats thinking we could sneak across early while the eagle eye race committee (I.B.) was looking the other way. Fat chance, we got nailed.

-Great upwind work by Dougs, Kell and Craib (of HYC fame) to capture 1st and 2nd Actual mono.

-Varied cat tactics going up wind left (Chuck, Mark, Neil, Bob and Mike) and right (Doug) and all still ending up in the same place ( the flag ) at the same time and a big traffic jam.

-Watching the Mark Eggleton, Neil Cummins, and Bob and Scott Frazier cats maneuver beautifully up wind between the islands to help capture 4 of the first 6 Portsmouth positions.

-The "cat"astrophic (for everyone else) move of the race by Mike Meagher going windward of the islands instead of behind to gain several places for a second actual finish.

-Chuck McClead (showing everyone that he’s not too old, just seasoned) breaking out early and loosing the rest of the fleet with a mistake free race for first Actual and Portsmouth and taking the "Eager Cat’s" hold on first place. Chuck’s performance warranted a victory cigar from the race committee.

-The family Cohens in their JY 15 and a strong fully crewed 4th mono finish. (Adam wants the tiller next time)

-Thanks to Joe Taylor, taking the week off to recover from back problems (they’re all behind you Joe), and still helping the race committee by towing many of us to the line to insure a prompt start.

Thank you all for a delightful race.

See you next week,

Mike

Tip of the Week - Sailing upwind: set the sail properly for close haul work (experiment by angling your boat at 45 degrees to the wind and then properly adjusting your sail; remember the setting as most people over sheet upwind or any time for that matter); sail as close to the wind as you can without luffing; sail the boat flat, flat, flat; move the weight father forward to keep the transom out of the water; in heavy air, spill the air rather than let the boat heel; when you see a puff coming, anticipate and ease the sail out a bit BEFORE it hits, pulling the sail in and hiking out through the puff to accelerate; pinch only if the boat is moving fast already; and again, KEEP THE BOAT FLAT.