May Club Series Report John Bottensek had a real challenge in setting up a course for the May club regatta. The forecast suggested the East shore would be better, but as the wind began to build and find its direction, John settled in on the North shore with a windward mark about as far out in the lake as possible. The wind built to 10 knots out of the SE and was pretty steady for most of the regatta. The long windward beat to the first mark was occasionally reachable on one Starboard tack, but most skippers had to make at least one tack. As the day progressed, a slight left hand shift made for some good tacking duels. Very little passing was seen on the downwind legs as it was mostly a broad reach parade. Tony Rieck, Steve Buchanan, and Joe Walter each scored two bullets with Tom Germer and Skip Miller winning the remaining two bullets out of the 8 heats sailed. Tom and Joe leapfrogged each other for the lead in the first half of the regatta, but by the 5th heat, Joe had managed to hold on to a slim lead over a hard charging field. Tom Phillips had a good start to his regatta until a slip of the thumb caused John Garver to crash into him hard on a beat and damage his rig. Tom took a redress on the heat but had to switch to his B-rig for the remainder of the regatta. Tom Germer and Tony also switched to their B-rigs, which proved to be a good move for the upwind legs, but not much help on the downwind reaches. Steve Buchanan and his guest Michael sailed borrowed boats. Steve has sailed a 12 before and was soon moving to the front of the fleet including his two wins. Michael struggled to learn how the big boat sails compared to his much lighter Seawind, but still he did well for his first time. Baron Bremer had a very rare zero-win day, but he did get five 2nd place finishes to secure 2nd place overall. After his crash with Tom, John Garver seemed to not want to get close to anyone again. His great start of a 3rd in the first heat was all he could manage for the rest of the day. Martin Gray sailed well even though the breeze was a challenge for him and his new boat. A little more stick time and he will be making us all proud... and worried. Skip Miller made it back from the Bahamas in time to dust off his boat. We all wondered if he had forgotten how to sail while he was away, but his back-to-back wins in the warm-up heats proved to us all that he had not lost his edge. Unfortunately an OCS and a foul in the first heat made for a bad start. But he overcame the set-back and was soon racing in the top five including a bullet. The racing was cut short due to the threatening clouds and increasing wind. Nobody wanted to get soaked anyway. All in all, it was a very fun day of pretty clean racing in a challenging breeze. "Reggie" and John did a great job as RDs. One of the Toms will be RD for the June regatta.
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