Do have a sailing story, news, or helpful sailing-related information to share?
Please contact P/C Steve Harris to have it included. We’d love to hear from you.
Prep well & sail fast… Dave for “No-Name-Yet” We had good wind and the RC set a nice long windward leeward course for the PHRF fleet – the new 420s sailed by Matthew Davis & Bryor Burke and Katy Schroeder & Olivia Smith sailed with PHRF and were handicapped along with them. The Optis were sent on a smaller triangle course and… well they sailed and had fun. It was a great day as the girls, sailing C420 #8612 were off the line like a shot and took a commanding early lead which they never lost – finishing a full 6 minutes ahead of Big Girl and 7 minutes ahead of the other C420. A promising look ahead to our 2019 BLYC Sailing Team! Last week’s Rabbit Flag winner Chuck Bendig presented the girls with the the coveted award for this week – a great day of adults and youth sailing together and having a great time on our beloved lake. Submitted by Dave Paligo for No-Name-Yet All in all, we had three good races. Our starts on “Team No-Name-Yet” weren’t the best, but in each race we improved by staying tighter in the start box and closer to the line. After the starts, we knuckled down to the basics, kept working on those tacks, gybes and weight placement and that was what kept us in the hunt and in the race. I want to give big kudos to our team Bill Collinson, Marsha Bendle and to welcome Chad Schrock who is a new crew member and has never sailed or raced before. We will see everyone next week at the starting line. Winds: SW, 7-8 knots No Name Yet #1049 I want to thank the RC for the great job they did, the crowd of spectators that gathered in the RC shack for their support and our team which consisted of Bill Collinson, our first-time racer Ed Romito and myself. I also want to commend both Alex Fischer and Chuck Bendig who single-handed all three races as they are both tough competitors. A big congrats to Chuck with his O’Day 26 Big Girl on winning the coveted Rabbit Flag. Third race we had to take a DNS as our team had prior commitments so we put the boat away while the race was going on. David for Team No-Name-Yet The Board of Governors at their meeting on August 9, 2018 voted to recognize two long-time “BLYC Heroes” with Life Memberships in the Club To learn more about Greg, click on the image above for the US Sailing Press Release regarding his new position. Mike Hein, son of P/C Mike (1974) and Joan Hein, grew up at BLYC and also has gone on to have a very successful career in the sailing and boating world. As a BLYC Junior, he won the Lightning Class North American Championships in 1982. From there, he went on to instruct junior sailing at the famed San Diego Yacht Club where he met America’s Cup legend Dennis Conner. While sailing with Connor aboard Stars & Stripes, he also met Bill Koch for whom he crewed on two World Championship Maxi Yachts and aboard America3 – the winning yacht in the 1992 America’s Cup. Following his racing days with Koch, Mike and his wife Annie, settled in San Diego and remained in the sailing industry for several years. In 2000, they relocated to Aukland, New Zealand and Mike began a career as a yacht captain aboard the 130′ motorfisher Mea Culpa. Today, Mike is the private fleet captain for the Emir of Qatar. Mike, Annie, and their children, Abigail and Max, currently reside in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. To learn more about Mike’s career and his time sailing America’s Cup in particular, please click on the image above.SLOG – September 23, 2018
My mentor has always told me to practice to race and not race to practice so when the rest of the BLYC PHRF fleet said they were unable to race on Sunday, we decided to do as my master and commander had taught me, Go Practice. Our team consisted of our regular crew members Bill and Chad, plus Gloria who had never sailed before, and myself.
First, we got the trimmers to practice tacking & gybing with the jib and main only. This was very successful with the light winds so we decided to fly that dreaded 3-cornered sail called the spinnaker. We furled the jib, set the spinnaker pole for a bare-away launch and hoisted the kite that filled with a pop–what a great sound. We practiced trim, made a few end-for-end gybes, then decided to take down the main so this crew could easily watch the sheet and guy trim and its affects. At one point, we were free flying the kite–what a beautiful sight. We continued to practice a few takedowns and relaunches from the cabin.
It was a beautiful light wind day so we let the trimmers take turns driving, allowing them to see our trimming so they could get a better understanding on how their trim affects the boat’s performance. We were having so much fun doing ring-around-the-Rosie (no wake markers) we lost all sense of time. After we put the boat away, we slid up to the YC bar for a few barley-pops to discuss the day’s adventure. A good time was had by all.
WOW! What a great day on the water!
We started the day off by launching our new Club 420 sailboats for the juniors at Liebs Island. BLYC members joined in to help escort them as they paraded the new boats down the lake to BLYC. Upon their arrival, the PHRF fleet launched along with several of our 2018 sailing camp participants in Optis. All sailed around the front of the Clubhouse where Father Mike blessed the fleet and it was time to race!
Sail on Sundays… Sunday, August 26
This entire summer has been plagued with light to no wind for our SOS series. This week, we put 3 boats on the line for three races with start #3 being a photo type start with all of us hitting the line almost at the same time.Sail on Sunday – August 5, 2018
Climate: 89°F, 58% humidity with sweaty T-shirts
Course: S-1-2-F (all three races)
FINALLY, after 6 weeks of races being cancelled because of no wind we were able to get back out on the race course. We had steady SW wind at the start line and our strategy was to hug the line and cross on port tack. We did okay and were about 15 seconds behind the O’Day 26. We held our port tack all the way to the north bank and with a few good lifts we were hoping it was enough to round the windward mark w/o any additional tacks; but the wind shifts and lifts would not cooperate and we ended up asking for Rule 18 rights (3 boat rule) from the Catalina 22 to round the mark. We ended up having to duck her stern at the last moment to avoid contact (I really owe Alex a few barley-pops on that one) and rounded in third position. We made up the distance with good sail trim and rounded the leeward mark for a second position but corrected out to a third place finish. Second race, we were the same strategy for our start but, with a wind shift while in our start sequence, we were forced to start on starboard. We were again a little late, but seemed to make up good position and held this all the way around the course.Congratulations!
WELCOME ABOARD!
CONGRATULATIONS
GREG FISHER
AND
MIKE HEIN
Greg Fisher, one of the most successful one-design sailors in the United States, started his sailing and boating career at Buckeye Lake Yacht Club and sailed for BLYC throughout his youth and early adulthood. The son of P/C George (1958) and Marty Fisher, Greg has amassed over 20 National, North American, and World Championships in his career. He has served the boating community through a number of chairmanship positions with US Sailing, as a Sailmaker, sailing coach, and most recently as the Director of Sailing for the two-time National Collegiate Sailing Championship Team at the College of Charleston. Greg’s honors in boating and sailing are too many to mention, but include the US Sailing Hanson Medal for life saving rescue, the US Sailing Community Sailing Award for Outstanding Director of a year-round sailing program, and US Sailing’ Gardner Trophy – One-Design Service Award, to name just a few. He is also a several time nominee for US Sailing’s greatest honor, the Rolex Yachtsman of the Year. Just this past month, Greg was hired by US Sailing as the new Chief Operating Officer for Olympic Sailing. Greg and his wife JoAnn currently reside in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.