Continued progress is being made to improve and expand the Racing Program at ECSC this next season. The second Winter Race meeting was just completed with good attendance. As important topics for discussion were identified at the last meeting in January, at this meeting we made some decisions regarding these topics. Clearer criteria and qualifications for the Blue and White Fleets were made with the oversight of our Fleet Captains: Jerry Brickley and Les Miller working with Rich Fox. A final recommendation and document was voted on and accepted. The fleet captains will implement these new definitions and all will be ready for the start of the racing season in April. The Red Fleet decided to move in the direction of having one design fleet racing this year with separate J22 and J24 racing fleets.
The group considered having two races on Sundays instead of just one. This had significant support, but it was decided to leave this to the discretion of the Sunday race Committee depending on the weather and the number of racers interested at the time. Only the first race will count for the series standings but the additional races on Sunday could be used by particular fleets in their series scoring if they desire. Given the initial favorable way racers felt about pursuit races, there will be more pursuit races on Sundays this year and the PRO Group will work out an effective and efficient way to run these races. No more than half of the Sunday races will be pursuit races.
The thought of having food provided for Sunday post-races (as it is for Wednesday night races) was felt to be not feasible given the variable time many stopped sailing.
An exciting new offering for racers is the scheduling of green-fleet races on Saturdays. Many keel-boat racers own green fleet boats but they defer to racing their large boats in all regularly-scheduled Club races. The thought is that by having green-fleet races on Saturday (for many who would not otherwise race their green-fleet boat) may do so on Saturdays when there is no other fleet-boat racing. Tom Lauer is the fleet captain for the green fleet and will be working on giving this concept a go. If you are interested in this offering, please give Tom a call.
Finally, we will have enough PRO racing assistants and food provisioners for the 2024 racing season. We are very grateful for those volunteers who have come forward to make the program more enjoyable for our racing members. For those of you who are racers, this means that we will be able to do away with the 7-point penalty this year.
More to come as the season approaches – stay tuned!!
