[Sonar] Thoughts on team racing

[tbrown9163 at comcast.net]

I think its time for a Sonar party,  perhaps a free evening before the Star of North when our Gimley (Lake Winnipeg) friends are back down here in a couple of weeks to share the many pictures, stories and libations.     Any thoughts or venue volunteers? 



I'd also like to throw the idea out of  creating our own Sonar fleet annual 'swim team' trophy, of which Mark Kochendorfer so spectacularly wins for this year.    I would have won it three years ago at Lake Geneva with my inventive 'roll the mainsail up,  then jump off the boat backwards in the lake'  move.   No doubt we'll have more swimming competition winners in the future. 

"Maximizing Business by Minimizing Surprises" 
Thomas Brown 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ernest Brody" <epbrody at earthlink.net> 
To: sonar at lists.wyc.org 
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 9:23:29 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central 
Subject: [Sonar] Thoughts on team racing 




The team racing clinic and regatta was a pretty exciting event.  I think in the last race Mark had the most excitement, followed by Marty and Kathy.  It will be a story (I’ll let them tell it) to be recounted over and over at beer after races.  I  think we will never tire of telling what happened to each of us. 



The Canadians are stoked.  They are more excited than when we introduced them to the Sonar at LOWISA.  They’re coming to Star of the North with some new prospects. 



Team racing has caught on within our fleet and it may spread to the rest of the YC.  For our fleet we need to take some steps to make it more effective. 

·          We need to collect some old but still useable sails.  We need at least six jibs.  We can then put a colored stripe on three of them so you can tell who is where at a glance.  It would be (liberals, please forgive me) a team of whites and a team of coloreds.   If we can also collect six mains, so much the better.  In any case, we shouldn’t be beating up our good (or even not-so-good) sails. 

·          We need more organized instruction.  Blake is one of the two best team race instructor/coaches in our area (the other is Cappy).  But Blake is limited by time and endurance.  We should approach the Sailing Center to develop an adult team racing program.  We should be paying a fee to the Sailing Center for some instructor/coach to give us classroom sessions, drills, races, and debrief.  These sessions would have a schedule and commitment.  Our skills with boat handling and racing will bring us along the curve pretty quickly. 

·          We could also develop some judging/umpiring corps over time. 

·          We need to mix knowledgeable and newbie people so we bring people up to speed quickly. 



Thank you Marty for spearheading the initial organization.  Thank you John, JR, Becca, and Mark for supporting his effort. 



Our objective should be to have two full teams to go to Sheboygan in 2010.  This is going to grow itself from the excitement. 



Ernest 
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