If you are amongst the lucky ones at ECSC, you already know that the racing season has gotten off to a great start with good attendance at our initial two Wednesday and Sunday races. We have noticed better turn outs than traditional beginning of the year participation and this is particularly true of our Sunday turnouts. We have a spattering of both new and old members amongst the racers. There have been a lot of upgrades to the club racing equipment, and we have been operating safely under the COVID limitations. We hope you will get your boat onto the water and join us soon.

Our first regatta is coming up the 21st thorough 23 of May…the Mayor’s Cup Regatta. This will be an invitational two-day regatta and will have traditional fleet racing formats. One-Design fleets with 5 boats or more may request their own start. There is a pre-registration requirement due by May 19th, so sign up and get others to sign up soon. Look in the ECSC website for the registration information and registration instructions.

There is still a continued recruiting process underway for a dedicated group of race managers and racing helpers to direct the racing activities for our club. The first training session for this group will be in the last part of May after the Mayor’s Cup. This instruction will be led by Geoff Endris and will be for other interested racers as well. More information will be forthcoming. If you would like to get in on the ground floor of this program, please notify Nancy Goff or me of your interest.

John Kohne & Nancy Goff
ECSC Racing Committee

The beginning of racing season is approaching rapidly, and we hope that you are preparing for it.  The ECSC Work Party was on Saturday March 27 and by the time you will be reading this article much of the racing infrastructure will be in place.  The racing buoys, Race Committee pontoon, Aircraft Carrier and Safety Boat will be deployed and ready for use.  The first Wednesday night race will occur on April 21^st at 6:50 PM.  Also, by the time you will be reading this, the last meeting of the Winter Member Race Committee will have occurred. At the meeting, a Blue /White Fleet assignment policy discussion will have occurred and fleet assignments for all racing fleets will be in place.  The final Spring and Summer Series Wednesday Night and Sunday Honor racing Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions will be posted very soon so watch for them.  The Mayor’s Cup will be the first regatta of the season on Saturday and Sunday, May 22-23, so also watch for those NOR and SI documents and mark your calendars.

This season the racing program will be putting on a total of 60 races to include 9 regattas, two of which will be boat specific, two will be open and five will be ECSC specific.  Several of the regattas will be linked with significant social club activities.  The number of racing activities is weighted to the later part of the season hopefully in association with a decline in COVID incidences.  I hope we can make this a breakout sailing and racing year with the difficulties of 2020 behind us.

The committee intends to focus on growing the number of racers and the number of times each boat races this year.  We are going to try to do this by engaging non-racers and new members with current racers as mentors.  We hope to increase the satisfaction current racers experience with racing by organizing a dedicated and experienced race committee presence on Wednesdays and migrate this formula into Sunday to gradually build participation there.

More volunteers from our Membership could help get these projects off the ground and create a more enjoyable environment for all.  I hope that you can volunteer early in our efforts to enable a rapid start to improve racing this year.  We will need to continue the volunteer race committee ( SignUp Genius) particularly at the start of the year until we can recruit more dedicated RC staff.  We also count on volunteers to sign up for regatta PRO’s and race committees, food and beverage overseers for Wednesday Night racing and mentors for new racers.  Please contact Nancy, Rich Fox, Geoff Endris or myself to volunteer for an activity that fits your fancy. Or ask how you can help or participate in the racing program.

See you out racing !!

John Kohn and Nancy Goff

Racers and Potential Racers

When looking out the window and seeing snow, the Summer winds pushing sails, boats, and racers around beautiful Eagle Creek Reservoir seem far out of sight.  Despite this – or perhaps because of this – many in the club are spending their time preparing for an exciting and long-awaited season of excellent sailing at ECSC.  Nancy Goff, Rich Fox, Geoff Endris, Chuck Goff and I have actively been working over the past few months making preparations for a breakout sailing season, something to get us past the COVID doldrums and winter bleakness.  On February 3^rd we presented some of the new ideas, actions, and priorities that are underway by the five of us on the Racing Program Committee.  The meeting was online and had 27 attendees logged-on for the one-hour presentation.

We announced the purchase of a new set of racing flags and a wind anemometer to help in race handicapping.  Plans for evaluating the Portsmith handicapping system vs using the current PHRF Handicapping System were discussed, and a decision to move forward with the evaluation was made.  We considered a proposal to create a dedicated On-Water Race Committee.  This will be explored and a budget to support this effort is in place.  Discussion of the guidelines for Fleet Assignment (particularly for the Blue and White Fleet) was had and a guideline was adopted to govern it.  Another meeting will be held a month from now and the fleet assignments for all 2021 members of ECSC along with the new PHRF and Portsmith handicap assignments will be available for discussion.

One of the highest priorities for next year is to increase the participation of all members of the club in the racing programs.  Our hope is to accomplish this through continuing to innovate the on- and off-water racing activities, and through the enthusiasm of the current racers in the venues themselves.  We are encouraged by the turnout of the winter racing meeting and hope to continue to build on the recommendations and suggestions of the membership in improving our program.

John Kohne and Nancy Goff

Ahoy,

I think we have to agree that this was a memorable year and one that will not be forgotten anytime soon…  I know a lot of you did not agree with our decision not to formally organize racing as a club function.  Many of you still took advantage of what was offered and we thank Rich Fox for making all of that possible.  I have said this many times, but our sailing program would not exist without everything that Rich does for us…..  Thank you, Rich Fox!!!

We were able to have two successful events this year: Governors Cup and the Hornback.  We thank Geoff Endris and Charlie Brehob for making these two events possible.

The Hot Chocolate Regatta was a great idea and I hope this becomes a new tradition..  we can thank our upcoming Racing Chair and his assistant for making this event possible.  What a great success it was!

Next year, I will be replaced by John Kohn and his assistant, Nancy Goff.  John has some great ideas to help make our race program even better, and he is excited about the opportunity to do so.  Nancy will be handling the social side of things, so we all know that means we are in for some special times next year….

I thank you all for letting me serve and I look forward to seeing you on the water in 2021….

Thanks again,

Marcus Rogers
Former Racing chair

Racers,

We finally got two regattas in this year!!! The Indy 500 and the Governor’s Cup were very successful…… Thank you Rich Fox and Geoff Endris for running these two events!!!!

We have one last event, the Hornback which is on Oct. 10. This will be run by Charlie Brehob, and we thank him in advance for volunteering to take this on. How many boats will we have for this event? Let’s make this another huge success story!!!!

The new schedule will look like:
Hornback – Oct. 10

Just because we are not racing, does not mean you can’t be out sailing…. Get those boats in the water and practice!!! Practice, practice, and practice…… 😊 If I can be of assistance in anyway, just let me know.

Talk to you soon,
Marcus Rogers
Racing Chair

Racers,

You have to give a pat on the back to Rich Fox. He does so much for us even though we are not “officially” racing, he still takes the time to get us all involved. Thank You Rich Fox for all you do!!!

What a year and sorry it hasn’t been exciting in a racing way….. It doesn’t look like we will have any formal racing in the month of August, but we will have a few regattas in September if all goes well. The Indy 200 and the Governor’s Cup.

The Indy 200 will be for the Blue and White Fleets only. It will be a one day regatta and we will have some nice awards for this event.

The Governor’s Cup this year will be single handed and will also only be a one day regatta. Open to all fleets and only club members.

The NOR’s are posted on our website (here) if you have any questions…..

The new schedule will look like this:

Indy 200 – Sept. 12
Governor’s Cup – Sept 19
ECSC Championship – Oct. 3
Hornback – Oct. 10
Purdue/IU Regatta – Oct. 17/18

Just because we are not racing, does not mean you can’t be out sailing…. Get those boats in the water and practice!!! Practice, practice, and practice…… 🙂 If I can be of assistance in anyway, just let me know.

Talk to you soon,

Marcus Rogers
Racing Chair

Hello all ECSC racers!

The ECSC Regatta & Mayor’s Cup Regatta are canceled for 2020. At this time we are in a holding pattern for the Governor’s Cup and the Hornback Regattas. We will make a decision on these two regattas in the coming weeks/months.

Wednesday/Sunday racing:
Wednesday Beer Can Series will be honor racing with a 6:50 start time through August 26 and 6:40 start time through October 14th.   Please see below links for more race details.

Notice of Race      Sailing Instructions

This eliminates the need for Race Duties and allows all to race.

Sunday Honor Series remains the same.

Thank for your understanding during these difficult times & public health crisis.

Marcus Rogers & John George
2020 Race Chair & Assistant Race Chair