Another Race Week has come and gone, and what a week it was! We saw just about everything there was to see from 20 from the south to nothing, we saw collisions, yelling, screaming, RWI (racing while under the influence) and plenty of Chad's butt to go around. We went into the event with pretty low expectations for two reasons - 1) it is hard to be dissapointed when you aren't expecting anything 2) we were down a woman (our regular foredeck the Vixen) and brought on the freshed face skipper of the Rock Lobster, hailing from the dirty mitten (a.k.a Eric Beemer).
This was the first year that Gary Stuntz was running the event and he brought a new era of Race Week in, with a breath of fresh air. The event attendace was up for the first time in years and it really went off without any hitches, a very well run event that I would recommend to any sailor. It brings in boats from Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Canada, and California every year. You can expect tight racing all week long with multiple races each day.
Race Week and good times go together like Beer and Smarties and if you don't belive me I have proof........
Our plan was to sail clean and stay in clear air out in front. Being scratch boat you get the benefit of being able to cover the boats in your fleet, but there always in an opportunity to miss a shift of get sucked over to the wrong side of the course since the race is happening behind you. Plus, if someone gets in front of you, they are beating you, and that can get frustrating, like watching the transom of a certain martin 241 all week long! My rule of thumb is, if you are going to lose to someone, they better be good, and the boat that beat us (FireFly) won the entire event overall, so kudos to them, they sailed a great regatta. 
So during the week, they hand out awards based on each day of racing, with a final trophy at the end of the week for your overall performance. We managed to place every week, sailing a consistant regatta. We decided to split the hardware up amoung the crew and we each took a day and if we won anything that day, you got it. By the end of the week, Kevin had not been awared a glass, until Friday, we managed another glass for the day and before I could even show the glass to anyone, it was aggressivly snatch from my hands like Froto grabbing the ring and Kevin ran off with it, he was later seen posing for this picture........He earned it, he did a hell of a job on the bow.......
This is me, taking time out from by busy day of racing to represent the west sIIIIIIDE! No, actually, the southerly was a touch cold and we had to put some gear on, an unusual thing for race week. This is my new Henry Llyod stuff I got for Father's Day....SWEET!!!
Some great photos were taken during the week and this sequence is one of my favs...taken by Kevin on the rail, one minute into our start on Friday. Notice the Wabbit and the bow of the Olsen right abeam of us on our windward hip........(picture taken from our chainplates)
Now notice their position, we flew off the line and climbed above everyone, something that usually gets done to us, so it was fun to do it to someone else for once!
The boat really sailed well for the week!I think we ran the motor a total of 15 minutes the whole week, we had nice kite rides in each day, a nice cool down lap before hitting the tent to party!
Here is the tent scene, Rich, the handsome looking salesman in the middle, is no stranger to shenanigans, he is a regular and has been a great contributor to our movie plot that we are working on......;) Rich is a Kings Point grad and is a talented sailor and is always great to have on board
There are some great shots taken by Todd Martin, a local photographer who does great work. Due to copyright stuff I won't post the pictures here, but check out the photos of our fleet on his web page at
Well, the week came to an end and we managed to hold onto second place, and amazing job by all. This will truely go down in my book as one of the highlights of my sailing career to date. We have a great time and it was a blast to see a handful of local boats in the mix, including four in our fleet alone! This pretty much sums up the week...........
"I'm proud of you boys, you kept your head on a swivel and that is what you have to do when you find yourself in the middle of a cock fight" -Ron Burgendy.
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