Hello Race Fans!!!
As the title of this month’s blog reads…. Governor’s Cup is coming soon to a lake near you. Get those bottoms scrubbed and boats ready for one of the best regattas of the year. The racing will be September 17th and 18th. We expect to have at least five fleets racing. J-24, Highlanders, Red Fleet, Green Fleet and White-Blue Fleet. Our Principal Race officer for the event is Geoff Endris. The onshore regatta activities are being coordinated by myself, Nick Mates and the Newgents. If you are able to help on the water, contact Geoff. If you can help during the onshore activities let myself or Nick know. I am still looking for volunteer for breakfast duty. Saturday evening will have a live band and dinners will be $10 for the first dinner purchased and $5 for each additional dinner. This is way less than the actual cost of the dinners and is intended to make it affordable for more ECSC members to attend the dinner even if they didn’t race. The Notice of Race will be published to the website soon. Registration will start at 8 on Satutrday with a skippers meeting at 10.30 and the Harbor Gun at 11.
Speaking of racing, August has brought Sunday races to a close. Congrats to all who came out for the various club championships. Your Sunday prizes will be distributed when I see you. Our Ladies skipperina winner Was Janet Hickok, Sailing with her hubby on their Hobie 20. Dennis Robertson is our Multihull Champ for 2016, and I believe our J22 championship resulted in a tie between Cody McCoun and Tony Hubbard. If I missed any club championships, email me and let me know.
Wednesday racing continues to be fun and has been some of the best racing we have had in years. I am super excited to see a rebuilding of our White/Blue fleet and the competition in this fleet has been great. Thanks to Rich Fox for leading some Q and A sessions during July for our newer racers.
Earlier this week we had many emails bouncing around some of our racers about some perceived issues when fleets meet on the race course. Keep in mind, just because the Red Fleet racers like to get uber-serious, yell a lot and go faster than many of our other fleets, they do not get extra rights under the Racing Rules. We all play by the same rules. That means if a slower white fleet boat is at a mark rounding and a faster red fleet boat has to go out of their way to round the mark because they didn’t get an overlap in time….. that is racing (This happened between Tom Newgent’s S2 and my J24). Also if you are unsure about being seen by another boat and you feel you have rights (starboard-port for instance) give the other boat a loud hail “starboard”. Obviously if you think you need to avoid contact, the rules require you to do so. If you feel you were fouled by another boat, even in another fleet, you can protest. If you do, the racing rules require you to hail the word “protest” AND to fly a red flag as soon as possible. Our Racing rules also require you to notify the RC boat upon finishing. You also should keep the red flag flying until either notifying the RC boat, or seeing the other boat complete a 720 to exonerate themselves. While nobody wants to spend their time after racing in a protest, there are times when they are necessary. Having said that, if you feel you did violate the rules, even if nobody saw you (hit a mark for example) do your turn or turns and race fairly. Reminder that the race rules call for a 1 turn penalty if you hit a mark of the course (including start and finish marks) and a 2 turn penalty for most other violations (port-starboard, windward-leeward or mark rounding boat on boat infractions)
Also coming up on September 10th is our annual INDY 200 regatta. The NOR will also be on the website shortly. Registration is at 11 with a skippers meeting at 11.30. This is a great one day regatta for white-blue fleet boats with a PHRF of 200 or over. Rich Fox will again act as our PRO for this event.
See you on the water.
Rick
