NEWS!!

SAYRA Sailors Show Strength at Laser Masters Midwinters East

Nine SAYRA sailors attended the Laser Masters Midwinters East hosted by the Melbourne Yacht Club in Melbourne Florida the weekend of February 17 – 19, making their presence known with three finishers in the top fifteen, an impressive showing in the fifty seven boat, international fleet which contained numerous past national champions of several classes.

Friday brought winds in the 3-5 knot range which rewarded sailors who were able to connect the dots of clear air and get off the line cleanly, the latter a major accomplishment in this extremely competitive fleet.  Saturday brought more of the same, but slightly more wind strength as the day went on.  Sunday proved to be a complete change of circumstances as a frontal passing brought 12 – 20 knot winds for race five, building to 20 – 25 knots with gusts to 30 for the final race.

US Sailing Champion of Champions

This year Lake Lanier Sailing Club was proud to qualify 2 teams for the US Sailing Champion of Champions event at White Rock Lake, Corinthian Sailing Club in Dallas, Texas. Team 1 - Reid Collins qualified by winning the C22 Nationals in 2011. His crew Doug Thome is an avid sailor for both C22 and big boats. Team 2- Martine Zurinskas qualified by winning the top female at Laser Masters North Americans in 2011. Her crew David Reddaway is Thistle sailor and junior sailing parent. All four of us were proud to qualify and represent LLSC and SAYRA at this prestigious event. We arrived to 20+ wind, 20 identical builder tuned Flying Scots with brand new sails followed by a clinic, debrief and practice racing. This can be a called a red carpet event with title sponsors Rolex Watch, Gill North America, Gallo Wines and West Marine along with many local sponsors! After a very windy practice day (only 3 boats flipping) and let me tell you that is hard to do in a Flying Scot... we had 3 days of racing Thursday - Saturday with conditions from 5 to 18, raced 20 races with a boat rotation between each race! All 20 teams were very competitive and everyone had some moments of glory. Reid had 7 top 10 finishes and Martine had 10! Highlights were the 2 presentations in the evenings. Tom Ehman from the Oracle AC45 team did a fantastic overview of the AC2013 and Gary Jobson, USSailing did a great presentation on the sport of sailing. White Rock lake/Corinthian Sailing Club was an amazing host lots of great volunteers and with over 100 Flying Scots it meets the true definition of one design sailing for all ages. While neither team came away from the event the Overall Champion, we were all Champions for competing at this level. Thanks to everyone for their support!

More event photos:
http://racebook-us.smugmug.com/Sailing/US-Sailing-2011-Championship

Those SAYRA sailors racing at the US Sailing’s 3 person adult championships at LNYC and their finishes were:

Mallory: 1 SAYRA team Paul Whitesides, skipper-CYC-NC
Chip Till, crew-ChYC
Chris Calhoun,crew-CSC-SC  10^th out of 11  

Adams:3 SAYRA teams
Jenny Gervais, skipper-CORA
Sarah Schaill, crew-CORA
Katie Hughes, crew-CORA
4^th of 10

Edie Sullivan, skipper-LNYC
Carol Claypool, crew-LNYC
Chris Kicinski, crew-LNYC
6^th of 10  

Karen Dial, skipper-CSC-SC
Kathy Gaddy, crew-LMYC
Diana Wrisley, crew-CSC-SC
9^th of 10

Chip Till, Chris Calhoun, and I had the great experience of sailing in the US Sailing Mens Championships this past weekend.  We were fortunate enough to win the Area D elimination event at College of Charleston and were representing the Carolina Yacht Club.  The finals were sailed in Ultimate 20s which are a 20 foot sportboat (bowsprit and asymmetric kite), and were able to practice ahead of time thanks to Steve Rose from Columbia Sailing Club.

In the mix of competitors were plenty of different class National and North American champions, college sailing All Americans, and so on.  When you primarily sail in one class in one region, it's easy to forget that there are plenty of other classes spread around the country who have different sailors leading them, and this is one event where many of the best people from different classes come mix it up.  I had set pretty reasonable (goal was mid fleet) expectations going into this, and was not disappointed by the competition.

The venue (Lake Norman, NC) provided a variety of tough conditions starting out the lightest on Friday(2-7 knots).  We started out slowly, and were able to hang in the good pressure but I just wasn't able to transition through the lulls and holes that would seemingly appear out of nowhere.  On Saturday we had a little more breeze, maybe 10 knots, and it started to become clearer that there were periodic oscillations of about 30-50 degrees working their way down the course.  Things would go from looking great to looking bad to looking great, and we were still sailing a little bit in a reactive mode, but we had some good looks and lead at a couple of marks.  By Sunday, with the breeze coming up a little more (6-15), we were more in our element and attacking the fleet in shifts and going for pressure instead of trying to avoid light spots.

While we started out slowly, we had the third best day of the fleet on Sunday, and other teams were congratulating us on sailing well.  After 11 races we were only 7 points out of our goal of mid-fleet, and averaged only 2 places behind the second place team.  Only the winning team avoided a finish in the bottom half of the fleet, and every team had a finish in the top three.  I was just happy to have lead a couple of races and been in the mix. 

I could not have done this event without my awesome crew and friends Chip Till and Chris Calhoun, nor without the support of the Carolina Yacht Club, SAYRA, and US Sailing's Area D.
 

Paul Whitesides