TESOD Weekly Racing Reports - August 5, 2008

PRO's J Bergquist/Elaine Lamb

35 boats braved the forecast for TESOD last night: 14 Lasers, 7 Snipes, 5 Vanguard 15s, 4 FJ's, 2 420's, 2 Jet 14's and 1 Daysailer. They were rewarded with a beautiful evening of moderate breeze, pleasant temperatures, and 6 races for each fleet. The PRO subscribes to the 'Alden Bugly' school of TESOD race management which can be summarized as "when in doubt, start a race." So we had a couple of start/finish overlaps, and we re-started some fleets before everyone had finished, but hey that's what TESOD is all about...lots of starts, lots of practice, and keep everybody racing. You are just lucky we did not bust out the 'I' flag... Also notable on the race committee front was a surprise appearance by Commodore Joe Van Gieson.

Initially, the breeze had shifted a little to the left of where the RC had set the course and sailors who perceived this were rewarded with some early gains (this bias was eventually corrected). However, it was important to be careful of the left as more than a couple of boats, particularly in the laser fleet (you know who you are), found out by digging into what they thought was going to be a sweet lefty only to get hung out to dry by a late-breaking rightie. That was not pretty.

Despite (or perhaps because of) his excellent form at the beer-in-lifejacket hydration technique, Past Commodore Morgan seemed firmly in control of the Laser fleet until he was handicapped by an extra passenger for the last race, which pushed him down to the status of 'also ran' in the crewed division. Margaret Podlich was the uncontested champ of the crewed laser division. In P/C Morgan's absence, James McKenna got the last race bullet in the single-hand laser division.

On the 2-sail course, Vanguards won the day over Snipes as a Vanguard (but not always the same Vanguard) always was first-to-finish in that contest. The small 2-sail fleet was dominated by Jet-14 sailor Ted Reshetilhoff sailing with his son Max, who had pronounced firmly before leaving the dock that he was NOT going to win and apparently dad had other intentions...

We on the RC boat took some pix: http://picasaweb.google.com/jbergqui/TESOD_8_5_08

One lesson that was learned by your cheerful PRO is that next time I do race committee for TESOD I am bringing more than 2 cold beverages. The vice chair finished hers before I did and then moved right on to work on mine. We were a little parched on board the Aquasport, but don't worry that is one mistake we will definitely not make next time.

Once we all got back to the dock, we were rewarded with excellent panini and burgers by David and Betka. The sangria was also pretty special, particularly for your parched race committee PRO and Vice Chair.

It's all going to happen again next Tuesday at 6 o'clock. Don't be late - Past Commodore Stout et all will be large and in charge!