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September,4 1999

Dear Friends in Sailing,

Race 10 demonstrated why we had our races this year at 2:30 instead of 1:00. With a steady medium wind blowing from 8 o’clock in the morning until noon, the common wisdom would be to expect fair winds for the remainder of the day. Instead, the wind dropped to drifting conditions at 12:45 and did not return to medium until half way through the race. Fortunately, a well conceived race course set by the committee, Mr. and Mrs. Chuck McClead, evened the conditions and allowed us to finish the race with time to spare.

Race highlights include:

- Hank Poons attended the race for just the second time this year (the first and the last) and sailed to a strong 2nd place Portsmouth.

- The Meagher cat dominated the fleet again and held on to the first multi-hull division beating out Doug Merrill by under a minute.

- The first three mono hull positions were all JY 15’s with Doug Kell, Doug Craib and yours truly.

- Cliff Eames and crew Joe Taylor (the fleet’s top Laser 2 sailors) did a stellar job of holding on to a "difficult to achieve in light conditions by a displacement hull", 7th Portsmouth.

- Doug Kell Jr’s best finish of the year with a 3rd Portsmouth (Doug said his goodbyes at home instead of dockside).

Following the race, the yearly awards picnic saw the following awards handed out:

In the Season Handicap: 4th place to Ivan Bush, 3rd place to Barry Cohen, 2nd place to Doug Craib, and first place to Doug Kell who credited his success to liberal bottom coating of "snake oil."

Actual finishers were:

Displacement Division: 3rd place to Bill and Polly Barron, 2nd place to Cliff Eames, and first to Joe Guaraldo.

Planing Hull winners were: 3rd place Ivan Bush, 2nd place to Doug Kell and first, representing the Holbrook Yacht Club, Doug Craib.

Multi-hull winners where the results depended upon going to the first throw out in this hotly contested division were: 3rd place to Robert Fraser, 2nd place to Chuck McClead, and top place by just 2 points to Mike Meagher.

Portsmouth awards went to: 4th place Doug and Lisa Merrill, 3rd place to Ivan Bush, 2nd to Mike Meagher, and first to Doug Craib.

Other important "goings on" at the picnic were:

- Old friend Warren Adair found his way to the picnic from Green Lake by following the cookout fires.

- Dick Laferty will look into the purchase of LIMYRU hats (please, no redneck billboard fronts) and shirts.

- Chuck McClead and Doug Merrill to organize a preseason regatta for next spring during the practice race week.

- 2:30 starting time will remain for all races except for make ups and the last race.

- You will be contacted by phone in the spring for committee boat work.

- We are redoing the history plaques for the Season handicap and first Actual multi-hull. If you have won either in the last 5 years, please notify Mark Eggleton.

- Our web site will remain up and running, so, if you want to be notified of any important announcements, PLEASE, contact Doug Kell by e-mail so that your address is in the notification folder.

See you in the spring,

Mike