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We have reports from Donna Garland and Tom Mullen.
You Snooze, You Lose Cruise
Sunday, May 27, 2007 Donna A. Garland, Haleakala
The LWSA kicked-off the 2007 sailing season Sunday, May 27, 2007 with the You Snooze, You Lose Pot-Luck Breakfast and Cruise under perfect sailing conditions. Approximately 60 sailors representing 25 sailboats and powerboats enjoyed the delectable and creative fare. The LWSA provided complimentary coffee, Bloody Marys and Mimosa for the festivities.
Rear Commodore Bob Garland held a brief Skipper's Meeting to outline the sailing course for the cruise scheduled to begin at 11:00 AM. The course began at Marker #47 off Welch Island and continued behind Diamond Island and Rattlesnake Island, stayed inside with Sleeper Island to port and Marker #75 to starboard, proceeded past Treasure Island, rounded Ship and Moose and then reaching to Parker Island, rounded Parker Island and made a run back to the Welch Island starting point.
The wind speed averaged 8 - 16 knots allowing the fleet to sail the course with steady wind conditions. Participating cruising boats from the PHRF fleet were, in no particular order, Haleakala, Chimera, Renaissance, Snapshot, Full Sails, Tranquility II, Interim, Freewill II, Celebration, Swept Away, Blueberry Pie, Forlig Vind, Hi Ho, Watermark, and Lagnappe. Three J-80's; Shamrock IV, Gostosa, and Argo III; sailed the course as a one-design race. An e-mail to the J-80 fleet from Fleet Captain Tom Mullen described the race: "The format of long distance, round the islands racing was a welcome diversion from buoy racing -- the competition between Gostosa and Shamrock was exhilarating and more than a little bit of fun." A total of 17 boats participated in the cruise.
The GPS on Haleakala indicated the course was 20.79 nautical miles, maximum speed was 7.2 nmph, with 4.9 nmph moving average speed. Total moving time was 4 hours and 13 minutes.
Snacks and stories of the day were shared on the main dock at Fay's Boat Yard following the cruise.
The LWSA is pleased to welcome new members Marty & Sue Barrett on "Stayin' Alive", Frank & Linda Cargiuolo on " Tranquility II", John & Maria Czech on "Czechmate", Ray & Jen Donahue on "Snapshot", Gary & Leslie Engleson on "Lagnappe", Will Fay, Brenner Fuller on" Fireworks", Christy & Al Gaskill on "O Baby", Kathy Downes & Frank Hoell on "Renaissance", Anne & Paul Lins on "Chaisama", Sean Mulligan, Kay Potfora on "Special K", Chris Rich on "Freewill II", Tom & Trudy Sullivan on "Hi Ho", Jeff & Roxanne Thomas on "Great Escape", Patrick Van Rooyen on "Swept Away", and Dan & Teri Weimer on "Interim". Donations were received for the LWSA from Jeff Fay and for Youth Sailing from Dan & Teri Weimer.
2007 LWSA Memorial Day Cruise/J-80 Race
From Tom Mullen, 2007 J/80 Fleet 1 Captain:
I'm hopeful that you and your families are enjoying the Memorial Day Weekend. The weather has certainly worked out to be much better than earlier forecasts. Argo, Gostosa and Shamrock joined up with the PHRF Fleet for yesterday's You Snooze, You Lose Cruise and a good time was had by all. It started out with a very successful and well attended pot luck breakfast on the dock at Fay's Boatyard. About 11:30, the three J-80's assembled off Marker 47 by BJ Thompson's house where a starting line was set up.
The 80's participated in race format, but we followed the same course as the cruising boats -- Diamond to port, Sleeper to port, Moose to port, Parker to port, then back to the finish line. Argo, with Bob and Mary Knowles on Board along with Casey, Heidi and Ryan (maybe it was Jason), took the cruising orientation of the day's event seriously and they loosely covered Shamrock and Gostosa around the course. Shamrock and Gostosa, however, decided to make it a race for all the marbles.
Gostosa crossed the starting line about a boat length ahead of Shamrock and a fierce, but thoroughly friendly duel then ensued. The wind was generally out of the south, south west at about ten knots gusting to fifteen. It was very fluky and constantly shifting, especially down the back side of Diamond, Rattlesnake and Sleeper. Gostosa and Shamrock kept crossing eachother, probably thirty or more times. The lead also changed hands about the same number of times.
Emerging into the open from behind Sleeper, Gostosa tacked over to port to clear the mark off Treasure. Shamrock hung in on starboard and caught a very lucky lift that carried her all the way to Moose. As the two boats rounded Moose for the run to Parker, Shamrock held a respectable lead, but Gostosa rallied her troops and decided to fly the chute. Shamrock had decided before the race to keep the chute in the bag because two on board had never even been on a sailboat before, but the competition got their juices flowing and when Gostosa started catching up to Shamrock, the crew, including my very non-competitive wife, Barbara, demanded to know what I was going to do to stay in the race. Left with no choice left, but mutiny, I gave over the helm to my friend Lennie, I crashed around for a few minutes checking out the strings, I threw in what a think were a couple of bowlines and up went the Shamrock chute. By the time Lennie caught on to the fact that the bow went the opposite direction from the way you pushed or pulled the tiller and I managed to fill the chute, Gostosa caught up and went by us on the approach to Parker.
As we rounded Parker and set a course for Welch, Gostosa was two boat lengths ahead with Shamrock trying to pass her to windward. After several passing attempts, Gostosa finally let Shamrock by and off we went on a reach toward Diamond while Gostosa stayed close to the downwind rhumb line. Shamrock's higher boat speed while reaching paid off and when Shamrock finally jibed over to starboard and passed Gostosa's stern, there was only a half a boat length separating the two boats. Staying on a starboard reach continued to give Shamrock a little more speed so that when Gostosa jibed over to cover, Shamrock had established a two boat length lead to leeward of Gostosa.
As luck would have it, Gostosa caught a few puffs before Shamrock did while coming up the Broads until the boats were almost neck and neck just a quarter mile from the finish. Gostosa, with an overlap to leeward, very successfully pinned Shamrock coming into the finish and kept her from jibing over to port as the two boats approached the layline to the finish line. When Shamrock finally called for water approaching the rocks off the southern tip of Welch near Marker 47, both boats jibed over onto the port layline with Gostosa to windward and barely a boat length ahead After 15.9 miles of incredibly close racing, Gostosa grabbed just enough of Shamrock's wind to cross the line ahead of Shamrock by one boat length.
Argo, having finally deciding to get back into it by popping her chute on the run back to Welch from Parker, crossed the finish line a few minutes later. Much fun was had by all. There were about ten cruising boats out on the course with us and even a few power boats from Fay's shadowed the fleet all the way around the course.
Congratulations to Donna and Bob Garland and a small army of volunteers who assisted at the breakfast and who manned the LWSA desk. A number of new memberships were bought at least eight new boating families became part of the LWSA fleet. I believe that more than $500 were raised for LWSA programs including a sizable donation from Will Fay at Fay's Boatyard.
The format of long distance, round the islands racing was a welcome diversion from buoy racing and although there were not as many competitors as are present during our Thursday Night Series, the competition between Gostosa and Shamrock was exhilarating and more than a little bit of fun. Check out the LWSA website at www.lwsa.org and click on 2007 Regatta Schedule for a listing of future events. Hope to see you out there Thursday night for more fun and games!!!
