[Sonar] 2013 Sonar Annual Meeting and Party at the Foster's house this Saturday: print and bring this with you to the meeting

Tue Jan 29 17:30:19 CST 2013

Hi Sonar Sailors,

1.    Carmella and I are looking forward to having you all in our home, and
hope to have a good meeting and a fun time.  Our house is at 19150 Park
Avenue in Deephaven.  There is room for 4 cars in the driveway.  You can
park on the north side of Park Ave(our house is on the north side of Park
Avenue), the police will not care if one lane is blocked, as long as there
is room for a fire truck to get by.  There is a house for sale at the corner
of Park Ave and Deephaven Ave, just before you get to our house.  Look for
the Coldwell Banker Burnet sign.  The house is unoccupied, and there is room
for 4 cars in their driveway.

2.    2013 Race Schedule: Attached is the Rev B draft schedule. If you have
questions feel free to ask either in the meeting or to me personally.

3.    One day regatta: New to this year's schedule are the one day regattas
primarily in Wayzata Bay. Each fleet needs to decide as a fleet when you
want these one day regattas to start. The choices are 10 AM, 11 AM, 12 AM, 1
PM.  The BOD wants to have no races start after 3 PM so that the Rumble
Fleet can get back to the yacht club about the same time as the fleets
coming in off the main Lake. We also plan maybe in a north-south wind to run
the races in the Main Lake but still on a short course, as the Main Lake
accommodates two fleets easily in the north-south wind direction and the Bay
does not accommodate very well the north-south wind direction.

I personally would prefer to start at 1 PM which would give us a little over
three hours on the water which is enough for "this old man".  Take a little
lunch with us, rig the boat about 12:30 PM and leave the dock for a 1
o'clock start. The races are going to be very short windward/leeward with a
center start, and one time around. They will be between 20 and 30 minutes
with lots of mark roundings.  The start of the next race will be immediately
following the last finisher. In the three hours plus we could get in as many
as five to seven races. However, the J/22 and J/24 fleets want to start at
10 o'clock and race for 5+ hours and get in as many as 10 or 12 races.

We are well aware of the fact that in setting up this new schedule idea,
there are going to be some teams that decide to take these three Sundays off
and go to grandma's cabin. It would be nice for the group to think about
whether they're going to race this one day regatta or take the day off, and
let the fleet know what they're thinking. There's also the possibility that
the fleet could decide on an individual voluntary basis that we would mix
experienced and inexperienced people on different boats, and make this a
training regatta, or a training day. That might be a good idea for the first
one in June to help the less experienced people. I don't think it would be a
good idea to do it for all three.

4.    Sonar Fleet Special Rules: The fleet also needs to decide if there are
any changes to Sonar fleet special rules so that we can get them posted on
the official website of the WYC for "official fleet rules". Last year we
ended up with no special fleet rules posted to the website, and sort of
didn't get our act together on that. Things need to be discussed and
decided:

a.    Lifts: we currently have a gentleman's agreement that people don't put
their boats on lifts. As Dock Chairman of the WYC, I am contemplating that
the new dock designs may include lifts, because it is my belief that the
entire yacht club will be on lifts within three or four years, due to zebra
mussels. Currently, there is a problem with the low Lake water at times and
that may be getting worse. When we build the new pile driven docks similar
to most other marinas on the Lake, there is a possibility that we could have
the new kind of lifts installed on four pile-driven posts so that, when your
boat is up and out of the water there is nothing in the water. In the last
few years the people with lifts have had difficulty because as the water
drops they need to lower the poles holding up the lift, and when the water
gets really low the bottom of the lift will not allow them to float off the
lift.

b.    Star of The North Regatta: we currently have had an agreement that
there would be no scoring of Sonars for Main Lake racing on the Sunday of
Star the North, but it is not in the special rules and if that's what the
fleet wants, it should be in the special rules.

c.    Sailing Center Charter Sonars: The Sailing Center has two sonars that
can be chartered for the A, B, C, G, or T series. This is a great
opportunity for Fleet Five to build the Sonar Fleet, as it's an opportunity
for current crew members to put a team together and charter the boat on a
very inexpensive basis, and for other people in the yacht club to try out
Sonar racing. Ernie has worked very hard on this program, is in charge of
it, will be the one to qualify the skipper of the charter, and the board of
the WYC has voted to sponsor this plan to the tune of 50% of the fee. Ernie
will talk about this.  Ernie can also rent these boats to racing sailors
from the public who must join the yacht club at a minimum of a crew
membership. How do we score these people?

d.    Team Racing Regatta: The Sonar fleet did not run this last year
because no one was willing to step up and be the regatta chairman. At this
meeting it would be nice to have somebody step up and say they will be the
regatta chairman for that regatta, and to make plans as to how it is going
to run to meet people's needs. This could be a two-day or a three-day
regatta, and possibly have a team racing coach put on a clinic on Friday and
race on Saturday and Sunday. I personally don't race team racing because I
can't jump around the boat the way JR does. Also, the fleet needs to decide
if there will be no scoring of races in the Main Lake during the Team Racing
Regatta. I personally think the Commodore cup should be allowed to run a
Sonar fleet that Saturday, and maybe somebody different can win. We also
need to consider if we are willing to open up team racing to other fleets
and let them skipper or crew our Sonars. Ernie also has two Sonars at the
WCSC that possibly could be chartered for that regatta, and maybe before the
meeting he could figure out a price. The yacht club would be willing to pay
half of the rental fee. How do we want to score these people? 

5.    Family Fun Regatta: is a perfect event for many of the families in the
Sonar fleet, and this year it is going to be expanded with a really fun time
after the lunch of hot dogs and ice cream bar with games, inflatable jumping
castle, gutter blow boat races, balloon artist, and face painting. Carmella
and I have been working on this regatta for several years and need somebody
to step up and be regatta chairman. They would have a lot of help as we've
got a number of volunteers are willing to help, but we need a chair person
or a chair couple who have children and want to help the yacht club be more
children and family friendly. The format for this regatta is that it starts
about 10 AM - 10:30 AM goes out into Wayzata Bay for an hour and a half or
so of racing, and comes in for a hot dog lunch with ice cream sundae bar. We
have put this regatta on the MYC schedule, and have a commitment from Holly
Evans at the MYC to organize the mothers at their club whose husbands are
racing scows on that day to bring their children for the regatta. So, we are
going to need all the Sonars we can get to come and take out the MYC mothers
and children. Holly is going to be on the committee, and it's a great
opportunity for the WYC.

6.    Brian Hayes coming to the WYC: I have been in communication with Brian
from North Sails who wants to come to the WYC this year. I have invited him
to come for the entire weekend of either the first or second weekend in May,
which are the first two weekends of Saturday "on-the-water training". I'm
hopeful that he'll come on Friday and do a seminar at the yacht club. We
will be holding on-the-water training, but we can have a fleet that is not
involved in on-the-water training have a lecture from Brian in the yacht
club at 9:30 AM and then go out on the water with Brian in a powerboat and
video the boats with Brian making comments. We all then can come in for the
nice grilled lunch by Steve, and another fleet can have an afternoon
on-the-water session with Brian and have a debrief at the end of the day,
and we will take him out to dinner. Sunday morning an additional fleet can
have an on-the-water session with Brian, have lunch at the yacht club, and
Brian could photograph the Sonar fleet during the Sunday afternoon race, and
have a debrief at the yacht club. We would then take him to the airport.
That's an awfully big involvement for Brian, and I don't know if he will
devote that much time, but you will never get it if you don't ask for it.

If you read this long email, think about what you like/want and don't
like/want, print it, and bring it to the meeting, it will go a long way
toward shortening the meeting instead of having an endless discussion about
these items.

Regards,

Bert

Bert Foster

RC Chair WYC

H 952-473-2240

C 612-281-9999

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