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Our GPS Track…

Chirs from Swale challenged us to another race.  When will that boy learn!  This time; it JoJo, Bryan, Mike, his girl Kay, and I crewing Speedy!  You know the routine…we load her up.  Drag her 5 miles to the north side of the lake.  Race…Kick some ass…and head back home…You want to read the whole story?

Well, we started a bout 30 seconds late.  Although I think Geronimo started about a minute in-front of us, and she carries the same Handicap as we do.  What are we going to do!?  Yell at her to come back?

We tried the same thing that we did the last time, we headed to the west shore, while the entire fleet (except Hotter Tuna) headed toward the east shore.  I think the fleet found some better wind.  After we got on our eastern tack, we noticed how far ahead of us the rest of the fleet was.  JESUS! Read more…

The Skipper

Last Saturday night was the second race at RCYC for the Saturday Night Summer Series.  It was also the first time the boat has been in the water since I replaced the outhaul on the boom.  Let me say this, the sounds the metal cables make while getting stretched out really shakes my confidence in my boat repairing abilities…but it did hold!  YEAY!

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The Skipper

Well the first Booze Cruise of 2009 went pretty good. The Motor started right off…we got out on the water and cuised all the way up to the new Hilton. On the way back, we got to practice the MOB (man-over-board) manuver, but we never did recover the “man”. Poor RichyRich lost his hat to the fishes. Read more…

The Skipper

I am not sure how many people know this, but I hate the cold. And when I use the term HATE, I really do mean it. This last weekend we raced the RCYC FrostBite Regatta. Now I know, with a name like that, I should have expected a chilly day. And I did…even though the Wednesday before we were having an 80 degree day.
So, it was not actually that cold. I think we were expected to hit a high of 56 and I actually think the thermometer actually did hit that. And that would have been fine with me. I can deal with 56. I can deal with 56 and some light wind…maybe even 15 mph winds. But that is not what we had for wind. When the go-ahead was given to go out on the water, the wind was howling at 22 mph.

I can not recall sailing on a boat when the wind was this strong. Well, maybe once. Read more…

The Skipper

Speedster and Flip, Flop, & Fly…Head to Head, racing down wind.

The first adventure with Speedster came as the Southwest Olson 30 Championship. I was very lucky to have a crew of experienced sailors helping me out that weekend. Brian had actually raced the boat with the previous owner, so he knew what to do…the rest of us pretty much ran around trying to figure out how the boat was rigged. Actually, I sat at the back of the boat and didn’t do SQUAT. I watched and had cold beers. That is what the boat owner is supposed to do, right?

Well, the winds were very light early on, but picked up in the afternoon. Luckily we did get 5 races in that weekend and we ended up on top of the podium. Since I did nothing but bring beer to the crew, all the credit for this race obviously belongs to the crew. Thanks Guys and Gals….

Check out the pics on the Speedster Photo Album…

The Skipper