Laser/Sunfish Sailing - It's Been Fun!

It seems pretty obvious that we're not going sailing today given the track that tropical storm Danny is taking resulting in the heaviest rainfall in eastern Massachusetts. So that brings the 2009 Thursday/Saturday Laser/Sunfish sailing season to a close.

We've had some great times, on and off the water, with the participation from both fleets continuing to grow each year. The partication has been remarkably diverse with men and women, ages from pre-teens to sixties, several families with two generations represented, and a wide range of sailing experience.

We've tried to be innovative. Some ideas have worked well, others not so much. Completely independent, asynchronous starts for the Laser and Sunfish fleets worked very well allowing sailors from each fleet to sail their preferred styles without holding up the other. This may well have been a major factor for the substantially increased Sunfish participation we saw this year. The frequent Lake Massapoag wind shifts were addressed by setting multiple windward and leeward marks so courses could be easily changed without waiting for marks to be moved. Especially fun was the on the water video recording, followed by a party at Annie and Gary's beautiful waterfront home to see ourselves along with training videos of world class Laser sailors.

Although the Thursday evening and Saturday late afternoon Laser/Sunfish (very) informal racing has finished for this season, formal scored multi-class fleet racing continues on Sunday afternoons until early October. Also, don't forget the 60th annual MYC regatta on September 12th and 13th. This winter there are excellent Laser frostbite sailing opportunities in Winthrop, Duxbury, and Newport. For a sailing winter vacation consider the Laser clinic and regatta at the Laser Training Center, Cabarete, Dominican Republic, in January. Florida offers a number of Laser regattas and clinic opportunities during the winter.

If you're thinking of acquiring a new or used boat for next year, the fall is always a good time to get a bargain. We were speculating on the beach the other night that there could be a large number of nearly new Lasers on the market this fall due to the Laser World Championships recently held in Nova Scotia. There may have been hundreds of new Lasers put in service as charters, to be sold later with slightly used hulls, but brand new sails and rigging.

Finally, I want to say a word of thanks to the many folks who have donated their time, energy, and ideas which made the Laser/Sunfish sailing so successful this year. There are too many of you to mention individually, but I have to single out Gary Werden who was the founder of our small boat sailing program four or five years ago, and who has worked so hard on it year after year in so many ways. Among his many contributions this year, Gary used his own marks, motorboat, and gas to set out and retrieve the marks each Thursday and Saturday, week after week. Thanks, Gary, for all you have done for the small boat sailing, and for your numerous other contributions to the club as a whole.

Good sailing!

Eric