MEMORIAL DAY RACES 2010

Monday, May 31, 2010 was a good day for the Lake Eustis Laser Fleet. We had 14 boats out on the course. We had 14 once before, but that was our record number. Our regular RC. Rob set the marks. Scott Tellima was the observation boat. 5 of our regular adults, 4 youth with full rigs, 2 Flying Scot guest and 2 MC scow guests, and the fourteenth was Kevin Ratigan. Kevin sails with us occasionally and Andy Fox encourage to come over Monday and sail with us. Actually Ray Laguna and Andy Fox of the Flying Scot folks have had a lot of time in Lasers. Ray was given the soft yellow boat that he gave to the YF. That is (Laguna I) but we just call it the yellow boat. He bought another Laser that Martin bought for the YF, that is Laguna II. Then he bought the 190,000 red striped boat, sailed it a little and sold that to Aaron Arnold.. I don’t know how many Lasers Andy has had, but he sailed Lasers for a number of years.

Scores:
Alejandro Illera 3-3-2-4-3-3 18
Andy Fox 1-2-nf-1-2-1 19
Ben Getchell 6-4-1-2-4-4 21
Kevin Ratigan 4-1-6-3-8-5 27
Rob Krentel 8-6-3-5-5-2 29
Jerry Beck 10-5-5-7-1-6 34
Ray Laguna 2-11-4-8-12-nf 53
Luke Yates 11-10-9-6-10-8 54
Seth Bahr 12-7-13-11-6-7 56
John Houck 7-9-8-10-7-ns 56
Cameron Smith 9-13-11-9-9-9 60
Robert Newlin 5-12-7-nf-ns-ns 69
Tom Rhodes 14-14-12-12-11-10 73
Sam Chapin 13-8-10-ns-ns-ns 76

Tom Rhodes has been one of our regulars and we are planning to get him a better boat this week, so expect him to be climbing up the ladder.

Robert Newlin came up from Puerto Rico about the same time Marjorie and I joined the club. He had been sailing J24, I think, down there. He did Scots here for a year or two and is charging to the front of the MC scows now. He had my old red boat. He had to the “set it and sail it” controls. Did a 5th in the first race and then things began coming apart on the old boat. We are glad to know what needs fixing, so thank you, Robert.

Cameron Smith has been one of our regular youth sailors and bouncing around with different rigs. Today he hung in there with the full rig. It looks like he had that 9th place cornered.

John Houck just wanted to try a Laser, when no one was watching, and here we are reporting it. He had the Kelly boat of the YF with the old “set and sail” controls. He was right in the middle of the fleet and did well. Usually we give people just trying out the boat one of the 4.7 sails first so they can get used to moving from side to side, without too much swimming. Full rig and he did fine. Next time we will find him a boat with controls he can set and fine tune.

Seth Bahr was tied with John on points, but moved ahead of Mr. MC with that 6th place. Seth is another that may have suffered a little with the full rig because of being lighter on a windy day. If they have the controls, vang sheeting is good practice because no mater which sail you use some of the time you will be overpowered and can use the practice.

Luke Yates with his own Laser and now the M17 youth skipper– another of the light guys working hard. He was our second place Youth. Sorry we didn’t have separate youth trophies.

Ray Laguna was sailing the red strip boat. Ray had a 2 in the first race and a 4 in the third. That was a good as Alejandro could do. Ray is the current Flying Scot champ. He was sailing MCs when Sam was. He is off with the Catalina 22 group when ever they have a big show and a few years ago was mixing it up with the Melges 24.

Jerry Beck is our favorite boat polisher, and then we caught him out practicing on Sunday with a win in the team racing. Now look out— he got his first first place. On a day when Alejandro didn’t win a race.

Rob Krentel was distracted by the water skiing. He had a 3 and a 2, but got hit with a 8 and 6. If you didn’t like the course, it is Rob’s fault.

Kevin Ratigan often comes over and dusts us off with his radial rig, but he did the full rig today. He got one of the bullets, but got caught in traffic a couple of time. On the short course stuff you need the start and clear some of the traffic on that first beat.

Ben Getchell has been on the racing motor boat construction thing and we are glad to see him back. He got one of the other first places and had a 2 to go with it. He was bit by that 6 in the first race.

Andy Fox got three firsts , two seconds and a DNF.. Fortunately Sam gave him a boat that the rachet block would pullout of, otherwise he would have won our gorgeous first place trophy. He says he hasn’t sailed a Laser for a lot of years, but that it still feels the same.

Alejandro for the first time in ages didn’t win a race. Averaged 3rd place to win, one point ahead of Andy. The first three boats were three points apart. Considering it was a borrowed boat that came apart on Andy (actually it was the hiking strap that tore out from under the rachet block) we could have given him redress. Well, no, we don’t give him any. After all Alejandro is our guy.

Andy did use the extra piece of line that I have tied into the back of the hiking strap to tie the front of it back in. Thank you, Randy Rea.
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