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Friday Dinghy Night 2019 Recap

Published on 9/16/2019

2019 Recap

 

The 2019 summer season was a good one, if you didn’t come out with us you missed some fun sailing.  We had 6 race dates, the first date was a wash out, literally,  a thunderstorm had come in to the area and as we all know, lightning and metal sticks in the air don’t mix.  But we had a good time any way on the deck of the clubhouse with pizza, beverages and great conversations.  The next race day on June 21 had 8 boats where 3 of them were new to the dinghy night.  We had good wind and were able to get an ambitious 4 races in.  The after party was pretty cool, we even got some people that didn’t race to join us.  We averaged 9 boats per night and we had a lot of fun.  One night in particular on July 19 started out normal as normal can be, 14 boats showed up and it was an 8kt breeze out of the East, the summer storms were skirting around the lake to the North and so we got the race started.  The boats rounded the weather mark and the boats were half way down to the leeward mark when it happened…the winds went from 8kts to 35kts in seconds.  To say the least it made things exciting and interesting.  To see a Laser on plain doing 10kts was quite the site.  Half the boats took knock downs and I was stuck on a reach across the lake looking for a place to turn around without going swimming and didn’t find it until I got past Flag Island.  While out by Flag Island I saw Bruce sitting on the bottom side of his Hobie 16 waiting for the blow to be over so he could attempt to right the cat from a turtle. The winds laid down and we were able to get all of the racers and boats off the water safely thanks to some courageous club members who jumped into safety boats to run out and help with the rescue efforts.  At the after party had good pizza, good beer and even some added bonus of hors d’oeuvres and desserts from a graduation party at the clubhouse that night.  Everybody kept coming up to me and saying “Best Dinghy Night Ever” and we didn’t even finish the race but we did have excitement.  We did finish off the season with 2 more race dates that were well attended.

 

We had 24 different competitors, 8 of which were first time racers with the Dinghy Fleet.  We had 7 different types of boats compete; Force Five, Laser, Sunfish, Weta, Hobie 16, Flying Scot and 420.  There were 12 races completed of which are the top 5 finishers:

 

1st Place to – Brian Hampton (Force Five)

2nd Place to – Paul Harder (Force Five)

3rd Place to – Allison Fontenot (Weta)

4th Place to – Eric Seymour (Force Five)

5th Place to – Ronnie Ashmore (Force Five)

 

The complete results can be found (you must be logged on) Membership > Club Documentation > (icon) Race/Regatta Documentation > (icon) Friday Dinghy Night > Friday Dinghy Night 2019.

 

If you missed the Friday Dinghy Night series this Summer you missed a lot of fun.  Plan to join us next year on the water.  If you don’t have a boat don’t let that stop you from coming out, we can find you a boat to use.  This is a low-pressure environment to sail in.  A lot of encouragement, a lot of fun and a lot of great fellowship with other sailors.  Next year come out and enjoy.  See you on the water.

 

Eric Seymour

Dinghy Fleet Coordinator