Clinton Lake Boats Take First, Second at Indy Regatta

Ben and I are so glad we went to the Mayor's Cup. Eagle Creek Sailing Club outside of Indianapolis is lovely and has a very strong one-design racing program. The regatta had about a dozen J 24s and nine Highlanders. We had five Flying Scots there and could easily have had eight or nine if other obligations had not interfered! The wind was light and we got two long-ish races Saturday and none Sunday.  Clinton Lake Sailing Association carried the day (not that I'm biased or anything!), with Eric and Rod Bussell placing second and Ben Williams and Deb Aronson taking first.

The best thing about the regatta, though, was that Carrie Carpenter, who moved to Indianapolis last fall, was reunited with her boat Shadow. Ryan Malmgren delivered it from Madison and then they sailed it together. Carrie has now joined the Eagle Creek club and, together with Geoff Endris, has lots of plans for building a fleet and having a Scot-only regatta in the near future. That would be an extra fleet in the Midwest District and has got Ben and me really excited.

The next best thing, or maybe tied for first best, was the speech the race committee chair, Kenny Carpenter, made about how pleased he was to see the Flying Scots at the Mayor's Cup and how much they supported one-design racing at their club. In fact, he said, anytime we wanted them to host a Flying Scot regatta, just say the word and they would be there. That got a lot of cheers from the assembled crowd, too. It's a club with a lot of spirit, a LOT of spirit, mostly young-ish sailors who like to have a lot of fun. I think this is a club that is ripe for a Flying Scot fleet, so stay tuned!

Kenny went so far as to show us where, on the massive Mayor's Cup traveling trophy, he was going to remove another fleet and put a Flying Scot class logo. I guess he is hoping we'll get many more Scots next year and one of them will win the cup (though the scoring for the cup was a bit confusing, I must admit!).

Oh, and another cool thing. We saw a gorgeous water snake with orange diamonds on its back in the harbor. Just gorgeous! And we had a little tiny baby praying mantis on our boat deck! All this within earshot of the Clermont Raceway (where they practice for the Indy 500) and Interstate 74!