We See the Other Side of Sailing at Sandy Bay...

Whenever we talked about sailing in Sandy Bay people would say, "if the wind is out of the right direction it's gorgeous but if it is not it's a real bear." Yesterday it was out of the right direction (SW) and lovely. Overnight the wind shifted to the northeast and brought all the waves and swells from the ocean right into the bay. Thankfully the wind was not in the upper teens and low 20s as some predicted, but the swells were enough that I heard of many many people being sick on the boat. The things we do for fun! Ryan and Stacey had another awesome day and finished second overall behind the Lintons. For full results, you can go here

Also, for a wonderful set of albums from the event, go here and here.

The championship fleet got two more races in and the challenger division did one. It was just gorgeous out in the bay. The day was, once again, lovely, which is more than I can say for Monday.

from left: Ben, Mark, Maria, Deb, Ryan, Stacey 

We decided, together with our housemates, Ryan and Stacey and Mark and Maria, to wait and pull our boats Monday. It would take pressure off the Sunday crew, we figured, and save us having to try to find somewhere to park our boats overnight. Little did we figure on waking up Monday to a steady drizzle.

Mark Benner (yellow hood) helping while Stacey and Ryan yuck it up in the rain!

After we all packed up we headed home in the pouring rain. For us it was a 20 hour drive. I know Ryan and Stacey stayed on the east coast to visit family. We'll see them again, and maybe the Benners, at Ephraim the first weekend of August.

Meanwhile, driving home I was saying to Ben it would be fun to stop at a "roadside attraction." There was one where we pulled off for dinner called "Claws and Paws," which must have been a private zoo and not really something I was dying to do - especially after reading some reviews. Anyway, by dinner time it was closed. Still, we stopped at a place called I84 Country Store. A restaurant I never would have gone to except for Yelp. Yay Yelp! And, turns out, it was a "roadside attraction" in its own right! Plus it had awesome food. We both had a Philly Cheesesteak. Delish, as they say! 

Back home and nose to the grindstone for a week and a half, then Ephraim and immediately after that, Midwest Districts at Neenah Nodaway, a club we have never sailed at. We're so very thankful for them volunteering to host our event. Go SIGN UP NOW!!!

can you see the fake cow head there? 

Ben and ...Stuff!

Alert! Alert!! All Midwest District Sailors, Sign Up NOW for Districts!!

Hello all Midwest District sailors reading this blog. Bronson, our district governor, got an email from Neenah Nodaway organizer Ken Friedman that as of now there are only four boats registered for the August 11-13 Midwest District Championships. (Five now, I just registered!). If he doesn't get 10 boats by Monday they are going to CANCEL THE EVENT!!!!

It's going to be an awesome event, with the single hand racing on Friday afternoon and a delicious dinner at a local restaurant on Saturday. They've got six races scheduled, so it'll be a top -notch event. I"m not 100% clear about the Sunday schedule because they have it listed as an evening/dinner awards ceremony at a restaurant but I have an email in to Ken to clarify that.

So, register now, Here!!

We're Here! Rockport is Gorgeous!!

Well, as usual, no time to write while in the middle of the regatta, but I will say the Midwest District has a pretty good representation here. We've got Ryan and Stacey Malmgren (who had a great day of racing yesterday), Frank and Marianne Gerry (who took delivery of their new boat at this event), Bill Vogler and Jill Rendleman and Ben and me.

Before I write about the sailing I want to mention that Rockport is gorgeous. It's  a little fishing village kind of place and the club is on the end of a wharf (think Ephraim but tinier!). Every boat at the club is moored. They had to pull a few boats to make room for us. We got there at low tide and the drop to the water was eye watering. I know Diane Kampf took a photo of Ben in the boat at the bottom of the hoist, so I'll try to get it from her. They have a very talented and dedicated launch service every day from 8 am to 8 pm so you can get to your boat. The trick is there's no running back to the car if you forget something. Plus our car is parked at the house we're staying at, which is walking distance, but several blocks away. It's been an exercise in efficiency!

We inland lakes sailors don't sail on the ocean all too often and I was worried about the wind and the waves, but Saturday the wind was out of the south/southwest and the water was flat. We had a light wind day! It was so exciting and I was happy not to be on the rail and pulling on the vang the entire day! The wind was a bit squirrely, though I might note. The locals all started at the boat end even though the left side of the course looked like it had more wind. They sailed hard for the right shore and, although we thought we were pretty good, having started with speed at the pin, when we got to the top of the course, they were miles ahead. John and Sharon Wake from Fishing Bay, as it happens, (not locals) took the lead early (I think) and never gave it back. The fleet, as accomplished as they all were, really spread out and people said it was because of the spotty wind.

Ryan Malmgren and Stacey Rieu had a great day and were the subject of a really good point made by Brian Hayes (who'd come up from New Haven for the day to video boats and talk about them at the end of the day). Ryan was on the left side and just stuck with it, trying to get his boat to go as fast as he could with the wind he had. Because of that he was not too far behind at the first mark - maybe 7th? That was a good lesson: you should lie in the bed you've made. How often, when you are racing, do you look around the course and say to your skipper, "those boats over there have more wind"? Not that helpful! You've got to go as fast as you can where you are. That is not to say you can't look up the course, but it just doesn't help to envy other people's wind conditions. The other point that Brian made that really resonated with me is about spinnaker trim in light wind. He took video of people's spinnakers touching their forestay. That is very slow, he reminded us. It make the leeches (shoot, is it leaches? leeches? how do I not know?!) close in on one another which is terrible for air flow. You need the chute way out in front and fully expanded and in a situation like that the skipper needs to heat the boat up, and sail closer to the wind (and crew has to then let the pole move forward) to get some boat speed. Then once you have speed you should be able to slower steer downwind and keep the chute looking good.

I don't have photos from today, but a woman from the club whose name I've forgotten took incredible photos. She promises to get them to Diane Kampf at fssa.com and Diane will post them, and I'll steal a few to put up here later!

Thoughts and Prayers to the Vitts

Quick shout out to Greg and Linda Vitt. Greg's surgery was today in St. Louis and we've been waiting to hear all day. Hopefully things went well. If you go to  Linda Vitt's Facebook page you see so so many photos of the two of them together, grinning, heads together, often on their Scot....Here's hoping for smooth sailing....

Don’t Forget to Check Your Bearings

       

 We all know that sailing is just a small part of what we do. We left Urbana yesterday after work and drove about four hours. Today our adventures involved driving across Ohio and Pennsylvania, and into New York. 

Ohio? Pennsylvania?

Once in New York we stopped for dinner in Port Jarvis, just over the Penn/NY border. Sadly, our meal was overshadowed because we realized that the tire on our trailer was about to fall off. It turns out that after 120,000 miles the bearings had given up the ghost.  The trick was whether we’d caught it in time that we only had to replace the bearings (we hadn’t) or if we had to also replace the axle (we did). Still, the meal and the beer (mine was called something like Milltown Kilt Spinner) were lovely.

We limped a mile to AutoZone hoping, as they often do, someone on staff might be able to help us figure out how to solve our problem. They didn’t have anyone right there but they sent us to a little garage two blocks away, which is about as far as we felt safe driving, as wobbly as the wheel was. (I LOVE Auto Zone), As we left the AutoZone the skies opened up so I got to use my favorite joke: “It could be worse, it could be raining.”

Kim's Shop

See the Rain?!

The mechanic, Kim, took the wheel off and broke the news to us that we needed a new axle. He sent us four miles down the road to the Tractor Supply place that, miraculously, had just the new axle we needed. Best $140 I ever spent!

For those of you who might not realize, that end of the axle is supposed to be smooth!  ;-)

look what a good job we did ruining our axle!

He and Ben reassembled the axle and the wheels and we headed off into the sunset. We won’t make it to Sandy Bay quite as soon as we expected, but much much sooner than we feared!

Our savior!! Thank you Kim!! BTW, that's a Scots N Water in his hand! We tried to indoctrinate him....

Getting Ready for the Longest Road Trip yet!

The Wife-Husband regatta is in Rockport, MA, this weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. The only trick is it is going to take something like 18 hours to drive there.....I think that might be a personal record for us! Anyway, we're renting a house with Midwest District sailors Ryan Malmgren and Stacey Rieu, as well as Mark and Maria Benner, friends from Lake Moraine Sailing Club, who I'm sure I've mentioned many times. That means good times are guaranteed!

I'll have my computer with me so if there's time I'll send updates...