A few sprinkles couldn’t put a damper on what would turn out to be a fantastic evening at last Saturday’s social event!  New faces, “old” faces and long lost faces were all present!  Thank you first to member Jeff Brakke for allowing us to take over his property and gather for an evening; second a huge thank you to both Commodore Michael Starbeck (and family naturally!) and Vice Commodore Brad Price (and Kate who is the real muscle!).  They did a great job of putting together the entertainment and food for all to enjoy!

One week until the pinnacle event of the CLYC summer!  The ILYA X and Optimist Championship Regattas will be held in Clear Lake starting next week. This is by far the largest single class regatta held in the ILYA all year long; hundreds of extremely talented X boat and Opti sailors being toted around by their parents and they bring the whole family!  Oh yeah, they bring their coaches, aunts, uncles, neighbors and sometimes their pets too… The X boats have the lake on two different courses from Thursday through Saturday; Sunday evening the Optis take over the lake on two different courses, culminating on Tuesday August 2nd.  4 Champions will be crowned over the 6 days of racing and some highly coveted Blue Chip invites will be awarded as well!  Thank you greatly to the many people who have already volunteered; if you would still like to volunteer, please contact Julie Oltrogge (clyciowa@gmail.com) or if you would like to help out with spectator boat duties, please contact Mike Starbeck (michael.starbeck@gmail.com).

A couple quick reminders; we’re behind races, you should be ready for back-to-back races on most racing days.  This weekend the E fleet races both Saturday and Sunday again; this is one of the weekends predetermined at the beginning of the season.

The “Youth Road Warrior” award would have to go to Leif Lundberg; he and family have been traveling the Midwest sailing X boat regattas galore this summer. The latest adventure took them to Oshkosh Yacht Club for the Xtreme Regatta… 3 top ten finishes highlighted his scoreline including a 3rd in Race 6.  Well done Leif and team!

Welcome to the typical mid-summer uncertainty… Do we have heat and no wind or heat coupled with gale force winds, rain and storms, perhaps all in the same day? The only constants are heat and humidity… Last weekend was no exception! The Jack MacNider Regatta was scheduled for last weekend in all fleets; this is contrary to what I wrote last week. (Side note – No retraction needed by this publication as a change was made after publication)

Saturday morning dawned with a decent breeze; both the MC and X fleets got started and sailed half a race before a HUGE windshift forced PRO Charlie MacNider to abandon, adjust the course and restart both fleets.  After restarting the fleets the breeze actually stayed in a fairly steady direction with acceptable velocity.  The MC’s went first and were very close throughout the contest with many lead changes.  In the end it was Stu Oltrogge winning with Byron second and Brad Oz third.  The X fleet also had close battles throughout the race; Elle Ebeling made a big move on the last leeward leg to pass Sam Ludwig for the race and regatta win! After having to make adjustments, time was against the morning session, another race just couldn’t be squeezed in.

I suppose it’s better late than never for the Ebeling/Callanan team aboard the Z-10 to hit the lake for the first time; a big welcome back party it was for them!  The E fleet started Race 1 in a breeze similar to that of the morning session, a bit streaky and shifty, but still fair.  Mark Ebeling and Casey Callanan must have gotten a little mojo with Elle Ebeling on the boat right after her morning win; they came off the starting line with speed, hooked into the first shift and never looked back! Emily Haugerud and crew on the Z-23 were second with Dan Allen and crew sailing the Z-11 squeaking into third.  PRO Tommy Erickson must have eagle eyes to see the finishing order after that…The fleet was close and getting bunched within 200 yards of the finish line; 4 boats finished within seconds of each other. After a short delay to adjust the course, Race 2 got underway in a building breeze.  A short lived mistake at the windward mark by Team Loon allowed Dan Allen and the Wild Side team to sneak by and keep the lead for the win.  The Z-23 boat cleaned up its mistake quickly and managed to stay in second with Brad Price and crew in the Z-9 finishing third. New E skipper Jake Sorensen with son Jude on the jib and Jeff Nicholas in the middle had a fantastic debut and will surely make waves in the future, watch out E fleet, we’re growing in numbers and talent!

Sunday…That’s where the predictability of unpredictable conditions came into play… Hot, no wind, bumpy tourist filled waters; that’s not very conducive to good sailboat racing!  No racing on Sunday so the results stood from the Saturday racing for the Jack MacNider Regatta.

If you would like to see the full season results, please visit: www.clyciowa.com/results

The full Jack MacNider Regatta results are as follows:

As you’ve read, the conditions for racing were difficult to say the least; we owe a great deal of respect and gratitude to our Race Officers.  With constant wind shifts, changes in velocity and changes in wave state they could have struggles setting a quality race course… Could… They do such a fantastic job making adjustments and we’re fortunate to have them!  Thanks Charlie, Tommy, Bill, Casey, Kathy and Denni Sue and many more who help during regattas.

What made the racing even better?  It was the five X boat skippers who spent an afternoon crewing on different E boats!  They sailed on different boats in different spots, learning a new boat’s intricacies and having a great time doing it; thanks and congratulations to them!  Jude Sorensen – jib on the Z-3, Brady Amble – jib on the Z-11, Finley Nyhus – jib on the Z-9, Sam Ludwig – jib on the Z-94 and Elle Ebeling – middle on the Z-10.  Think it can’t get better than that? These sailors and more juniors plus adults have been sailing around learning more new skills on Melges 15’s, yet another wonderful sailing platform for Clear Lake!  Next year could bring a fleet as large as 10 boats, possibly more!

The upcoming regattas will throw a bit of a wrench into the Sailing Center program… With that said, they’re still open and running a fantastic program.  Go out to www.clycss.com to see the schedule and register for classes.  If you don’t feel like going online, drop by the YC building and talk with them about the program.

We have a bunch of upcoming regattas and social events to discuss… We’ll wait and do that next week!  Until then friends…

Stay in the Clear Air,

Dan Allen
MC 2811 – Relentless
E Scow Z-11 – Wild Side
dsallen@cltel.net
www.clyciowa.com
www.clycss.com