SailMaine is hosting a “Shakedown” Regatta Saturday June 5th.  (Little do they know that our “shakedown” will have already happened on the 26th and the J24s will be race ready.)

The Regatta is offering to do a one design start if there are 4 or more boats registered.  This is open to J24s, Etchelles, and Ynglings (Ynglings can be chartered from SailMaine.)

Check out the website for more details!

http://www.sailmaine.org/Tab06_Racing/0605_Event_Pages/2010SailMaineRegatta.html

• Thank You-First of a huge “Thank You” goes out to all of the fleet members and volunteers that made this year’s Downeast Regatta possible.  It was a fantastic event and we received tons of positive feedback.  There are already 10 boats registered for next year’s 25th Annual Downeast, which speaks volumes to the level of quality of our event.  Nice work everyone!
• Haul Out-I am in the process of scheduling the Fleet Haul Out. I am contemplating scheduling it after the end of the PYC Fall Series so that the boats that are not traveling can compete.  Feed back from boat owners on this haul out plan before the end of this week would be appreciated.
• PYC Fall Series-The PYC Fall Series is held on the next four Saturdays and races are followed by chili, chowder, and drinks at the Portland Yacht Club.  Remember at the age of 80, George Tonini won the Lightship Race on his J24, Trick or Treat. Let’s get some fleet boats out there!  For more information visit the website.
• Handy Boat Regatta-There is also the Handy Boat Regatta, which is this coming Sunday.  This is a fun main and jib race for family and friends, a Second Chance favorite.
• Leafer’s  Last Leg-The Leafer’s Last Leg hosted by Sail Maine on October 17th.  For more information about this event see the website.
• Storage-Lastly, Rich Carlson is offering winter storage in an un-heated Westbrook location for boats on trailers at $20/ft of boat length.  The storage runs from November to May.   You can not work on the boats while in storage.  Vehicles, RVs, etc are also welcome.  Contact Rich Carlson at 207-831-2392 if you are interested.

2009 Downeast Job Break Down-Here is a breakdown of the jobs for the Downeast regatta.  Please read it carefully and share with your crews.  If for some reason you cannot perform your task please try to find another crew member to cover it.

This event is a huge success because we all contribute.  If you see something that could be done or a fleet member that needs a hand please help out whenever you can.

Thanks everyone, it should be a great weekend.

Food Shopping and Chili Making: Shelly, Laurie, Brookes, and Meg

T-shirt and belt Sales (also put merchandise away when finished: We will have men’s and women’s tee shirts, dry shirts and belts to sell.  Selling merchandise is an important way to bring in money for the fleet.
Friday 5-8 Molly and Sarah Helming
Saturday 7:30-8:45 Molly and Monica
Saturday Night after racing until 7:30 Kaighn/Impetuous
Sunday Morning 7:30-start Steve Neal
Sunday afternoon Jess and Andy

Award Set Up Saturday and Sunday: See Carter White for daily awards, trophies.  Daily awards on Saturday will be on the Junior Deck and Sunday’s daily awards and trophies will be on the front deck or in the great room (weather depending.) Brent & Gretchen Sullivan/Draco

Keg Care-Set Up and Take Down: Whoever gets in off the water first should set up the keg on Saturday and Sunday.  Please make sure the keg is taken care of Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights before leaving.  It can be put in the walkin in the kitchen  at the end of each night.
Friday afternoon-night Stephanie Helms and Mike Willett
Saturday afternoon-night Stephanie Helms and Mike Willett
Sunday afternoon Stephanie Helms and Nick Dambrie

Snack Duty (set up and clean up): See Shelly for location of snacks and bowls.
Friday afternoon Shelly, Meg, Brookes and Laurie
Saturday afternoon Jess and Andy
Sunday afternoon Jess and Andy

Check-In/ Weigh In
Friday 4-8 and Saturday 7:30-skippers meeting Molly and Carter White

Launch and Haul at Handy’s: Trailers should first be stored in the upper lot at Handy’s  and then over flow can be parked along the fence at PYC or maybe in the field.  For haul out the cars should have a matching hull number card in their dash so that we can make sure that the trailer matches the boat being hauled.
Friday 2-6 Rich Degrandpre, Nick Dambrie, and Mike Willett
Saturday 7:30-9:00 (by appointment only-as of right now there are no boats) Rich Degrandpre, Nick Dambrie, and Mike Willett
Sunday after Racing (keep a radio on ch 72 to update on progress and awards time-boats traveling to Marblehead & Lake George should plan to haul out as well) Rich Degrandpre, Wabi Sabi, and Sullivans

Mooring Coordination Bob Putnam and Launch Drivers

BBQ Set Up (We can use the Junior Grill if we can’t find our tank) Denali Crew-Tony will buy the food.  Molly has ketchup, mustard and relish.

Provisioning RC and Mark boats for Saturday and Sunday: There will be a total of 7 people for each day give Shelly the receipt for reimbursement Terry Naylon and Matt Blakeman (decide between you which day you want)

Breakfast Saturday and Sunday Pit Party

Clean up: Please leave the club better than the way you found it.
Friday Night: Junior deck/room and captain’s room Bad Apple
Sat/Sunday breakfast Pit Party
Saturday After Dinner: Clear tables empty trash into dumpster and replace with new bags.  Wipe down wooden tables, and break down white tables on the deck for dancing.  Mr. Hankey and Flying Chicken
Saturday After Party: Clear and wipe down all surfaces, throw away trash, take trash out to dumpster, replace trash bags, and close all windows and door.  Wabi Sabi, Al, Impetuous, and Bouncing Betty
Sunday: Break down tables and throw all trash away Denali

Food

Friday Meg, Shelly, and Laurie

Saturday Gritty’s and Steph

Sunday BBQ Denali

Bartending: A club member or staff member must be bartending at all time.
Friday Night 5-8 Rum-Bad Apple Crew and Beer-Scott Smithwick, (5:00-6:00) Andrew Gibbons (7:00-8:00), and Mark Waite (6:00-7:00)
Saturday Night 5-10 Rum-PYC Bartender and Beer-Ed Rowe (7:00-8:00), Skip (6:00-7:00) and Wendy Yale (5:00-6:00), Bill Newberry (8:00-9:00), Dave Robinson or Mark Klein (9:00-10:00)
Sunday afternoon 3-6 Mark Klein (4:00-5:00), Carter White (5:00-6:00), Tom Hall (3:00-when off the water-4:00) (any other PYC Fleet 43 sailors please fill in if necessary)

Scoring Stephanie Helms (unless Mark wants to do it on the LL)

RC Mark Toso (PRO), Rick and Cis Tonks, Greg Carville
Mark Boat 1 Skip Yale
Mark Boat 2 Scott & Shirley Fox

Protest Committee Bill Newberry (facilitator), Greg Carville, Andrew Gibbonn, & Sarah Helming.

Photo Boat James Cullum & Kieth Luke

The NOR for the Double Handed Regatta is now posted on the fleet web site.

Please join us this Saturday for some limited crew racing, burgers and dogs on the grill, and of course Sailor Jerry will be there.

See the Notice of Race for more details.

Don’t forget that there will be a Downeast Planning Meeting Tuesday August 11th at PYC.  The meeting will begin at 6:00 pm.

Hope to see you all there.

We will be holding a Downeast Regatta Planning Meeting  on Tuesday, August 11th at Portland Yacht Club at 6:00pm.

We have a small group of people already interested in working on making this year’s Downeast an even bigger success but always welcome more people with new ideas.

Hope to see you on Tuesday.

Mid Summer Meeting Notes

*Notes in bold

Monday July 22, 2009

5:30 in the Captain’s Room

I. Need for Rules and/or Race Management Seminar (in the fall, winter, spring)
Race Management Seminar-PYC will probably be holding another Race Management Seminar this spring; Fleet 43 will offer to help with this event in hopes to be co-hosts for the seminar.  Also Fleet 43 members will be encouraged to attend to increase attendance and to better the fleet’s race management overall.

Sailing by the Rules in the Fleet- A friendly reminder to sail under the US Rules of Sailing and if a boat does not then you are encouraged to protest them (even on Wednesdays).  As written in the Wednesday Night NOR, the fleet, as a whole, will sit as the protest committee.  One way to learn/understand the rules of sailing is to use them.

II. Calendar of Up Coming Travel Events:

A. Northeast Regionals September 19-20th
Northeast Regionals will be held in Marblehead and will follow the Downeast Regatta.  The regatta offers a low entry fee,  a crane,  rooms at the Corinthian are going to be cheap for the event (or there are plenty of other places to stay in Marblehead), and Marblehead has one of the best Race Committees in the country.  This is a world qualifier with several of the boats that were at the Portsmouth Districts.  It would be nice to send as many of our boats as possible to this event because Marblehead boats come to the Downeast Regatta each year.   The more boats we send the more boats they will send to us.  It would be nice to have the boats planning to attend register well before the Downeast so Marblehead can see our fleet participation.

Haul out-If there are not too many boats from away, boats going to Northeast Regionals can haul out at the end of the Downeast on Sunday.  If we have too many boats from away, there has been a fleet haul out scheduled for September 15th starting at 3:00 pm.

B. Lake George October 3-4th

Lake George already has 41 boats registered including Denali, Al, Steve, and Pit Party.  It is a fun regatta with a great venue.

C. East Coast Championships October 29-November 1st

Held in Annapolis, there are at least 2 boats from our fleet planning to head down.

D. Noroton, CT Regatta October 10th and 11th

E. Leafer’s Last Leg at Sail Maine October 17th

This was held in 420s and Ygnlings last year and they are contemplating adding J24s and Etchelles to the venue.  They will offer crane service to launch and haul the J 24s.  If you are interested in having a J24 line please let Stephanie Helms or Sarah Helming know.

III. Annual Meeting

At least one representative from each fleet boat must attend.  Decisions for the 2010 season will be made at this meeting so attendance is important.

A. Date and Time : Wednesday, October 14th at 6:00 pm
B. Location: PYC Captain’s Room
C. Set Agenda
1. Budget/Treasurers Report
2. Regatta Promotions Contract
3. Fleet Officers (Nominations will be sent out ahead)
4. Dues
5. Food
6. Trophies
7. Rules
8. Tonini Series
9. Fleet Membership
10. Sponsorship
11. PYC Update/News and Rules
12. Other Business

IV. Annual Awards
A. Date and Time: Wednesday November 11th at 6:00 pm
B. Venue: Same as last year, the White’s house/Potluck, an evite will be sent out closer to the date.

V. Doublehanded Regatta August 22nd
If the Trick or Treat gets in the water: To celebrate its return we will go with a Halloween theme.  Crews will wear masks/costumes etc.

A. RC: Tom Hall
B. Awards: Fun Awards
C. Food: BBQ and Potluck.  The fleet will supply the burgers and dogs and each boat will bring a side, dessert, etc.  We will have Sailor Jerry Rum and BYO Beer.  We are looking to have 8 or more boats to hold this regatta.  NOR will be out soon.

We need to take a look at the fleet grill to make sure it is ready for this event.  It may need a new tank or adapter, ask  Tony to take a look.

VI. Downeast Regatta
A. Create Planning Committee: If you would like to be more involved in the planning of the Downeast Regatta email Molly White at mollyfrommaine@yahoo.com.

B. Ideas for Improvement: go with something different from shirts or in addition to them such as winter hats, belts, shorts, a Downeast bandana, flip flops etc.  If we decide to do belts we need to purchase the ribbon up front and it will last for more than 1 year, this would be an investment.

Recruit more boats from away

Offer housing to boats from away: Nick, Emily, and the Whites will house boats, if you would be interested in housing please contact Molly White with details and amount of people you can take.  We will offer housing on a first come first serve basis.

Have our own fleet register for Marblehead early to entice more Marblehead boats.

C. Go over Jobs List
D.  Sign up for Jobs: Some people have already signed up for Downeast jobs but there are plenty more, due to our lower numbers it would be great if some people could do more than one job. The list will be available on Wed. nights.   If boats do not sign up a job will be assigned to them.

E. Sponsorship: We need more sponsors to create a great event as well as strengthen the fleet funds.  We have sponsorship packets so that fleet members can recruit sponsors.  Sponsorship dollars brought in by fleet members rather than Regatta Promotions keeps more money in the fleet.

We will start a “Friends of Fleet 43” page on the website, which lists any sponsorship less than $200 so that individual fleet members can bring in smaller donations.

Thanks to all who attended, we got a lot accomplished!

Series 2: The second series will begin this week and we will do the series 1 weekly awards next Wednesday when the glasses come in.

A couple of news worthy items to share with the fleet:

1. James Cullum, PYC Junior Sailing Coach, has kindly volunteered to drive the Lindsay Lord for the fleet on Wednesday nights. This is a great offer because Race Committee no longer needs to worry about having a member on-board and does not need to be personally trained on the workings of the Lindsay Lord. James (Jimi) will be onsite to operate the LL only, all of the other Race Committee duties fall on the skipper and crew assigned for the night, such as setting the boat up, blowing up marks, setting the course, clean up etc.
2. The waterfront staff has asked that all boats try to reduce their launch use. This simply means waiting for your entire crew to arrive before heading out to the boat or picking crew members up at the dock. Hopefully this will lesson the launches’ fuel consumption.
3. Monday July 20th at 5:30 we will be holding a Mid-Summer Fleet meeting at PYC. We hope that as many boat owners and fleet members can attend as possible. The goal of the meeting will be to discuss the season so far, make plans for the rest of the summer and coming winter, planning for the Downeast Regatta, and setting the date and time for the Awards and Annual meeting. There will be a remonder and agenda sent out closer to the actual date.
4. The glasses are coming, we are hoping to hand out the Series I glasses at the start of Series II. Thanks for your patience.
5. Lastly, the PHRF Championships and One Design Regatta is this weekend. The weather is looking good and it would be awesome to see a solid representation of Fleet 43 out there-so sign up!

There is still plenty of room for J 24s in this weekend’s Pilot Regatta and there are some weather reports that actually make Saturday look decent.

Also, the results have been posted from this past Wednesday.  You may notice there have been some changes since the reported results, there were some minor errors in the reported results.

Thanks to our RC for getting off three great races and treating us to brownies and watermelon after dinner.

Hilary Jessen suggested in the spirit of when we used to make food, that RC bring a dessert to enjoy after sailing and dinner.  Of course this is optional but everyone did enjoy the cakes that Rich brought and the brownies Hilary made.

Hope to see you all on Saturday morning.

Hey J 24 Sailors,

Don’t forget that th Pilot Race is just around the corner and it is one of the races that goes toward our beloved Tonini Trophy.

Please register before the event so that we can entice some other J24s that are on the fence to get out there and sail.

For more details check out the event site:

http://www.regattapromotions.com/portland-yacht-club-race-series/pilot-regatta.html