The Daily double!

A few days ago I posted that an old friend of mine had won the DN Iceboat Worlds, well Matt finished the week off by winning the DN North American's!

I am not 100% sure but I think that Matt has won this regatta before but obviously not a day or two after winning the Worlds!

Congrats to the new Champ! Great Job Matt.
Cheers

Tac

USA 1464, in the bag!

Today Ned and Roger flew to Annapolis to check out the boat and give Scott the check to transfer ownership over to Ned. We decided to leave the boat in Annapolis and not bother practicing in Cleveland before the NOOD.

We are now scheduled to fly out for the weekend before the NOOD and sail the boat, get it sorted and put our best foot forward. I have booked my flights and ready to rock. Can we move the clock forward to April 20th yet!

I have got to say that this is the most ramped up I have been to go sailing in a long time. I am really excited about meeting the people of the J 22 class and also seeing old friends that I do know from that fleet.

Anyway that is all from me this week. It has been a shitty week but this has helped to get throught the crap and make a good vibe going into next week.

Later!
Tac

Congrats to an old Friend!

It has been some time since I sat my fat ass in the cockpit of a DN, but I am sure that the last time I did, I sailed against Matt Struble. Matt is a few years younger then I am and a truly fantastic sailor. He has won big events in everything from the Worrell 1000 to now the DN Ice boat Worlds!

Matt is a super nice dude and has always been a great competitor. I am very happy to see that he has won the Worlds in the fleet that he has continued to sail in.

I just wish the DN class would get their shit together a little bit on the Web side of life. The results are nowhere to be found and there does not appear to be much in terms of pictures. I did find two shots and that is really it. If any of you that check my site out have a link to the full results and to some pictures please shoot me a comment with a link.

Congrats again Matt!

(the above picture is one of Ron Sherry about to launch off the starting line. Ron finished 4th)

Sailing in the NOOD

Hey All

I have been trying to get on line for two days to just give a bit of an update, but the wireless at the hotel sucks!

We have had two good days of sailing. Yesterday was cold as....miserable actually but today the sun came out and it was a little lighter breeze wise so it was a much more comfortable day.

We on Frequent Flyer have had a good event so far. We have a string of first. Some not as easy as others. We have been lucky a few times, fast at times and just plain out crew worked most of the times.

We have a nice 12 point lead I think, I have not seen the results today, so we have to sail tomorrow. Which sucks as they are calling for cold and big big breeze tomorrow.

Again the NOOD regatta format is the best of the value sailing you can get. It was a good party last night for most and good times had by all.

Yesterday saw some awesome high speed wipeouts by ALL the teams, in the Melges 32 fleet. Those boats seem pretty fast but very twitchy!

Anyway, if we keep the string alive we will win the family competition with my brother as he had two shockers today. The first race he was 11th and the last race he finished 3rd, I think. So as long as we keep out shit together tomorrow we will have the family bragging rites as well.

I will try to get some pictures from my sister to post in the near future.

Cheers
Tac

St. Pete NOOD

There used to be a saying about St. Pete. "the land of the newly wed and the nearly dead!", well that certainly could be kind of true when you look at the fleets are being sailed at this great event.

BTW, I truly believe that the NOOD regattas are the best value in all of sailing! While Key West, Miami Race Week, Block Island and several other high end regattas, all offer great sailing the NOOD regattas are the best bang for your buck in sailing PERIOD! For the money you spend on one regatta entry fee at the big regattas you can almost do the entire NOOD curcuit.

Anyway off the soap box back to the St. Pete NOOD regatta 07. I was just asked by my Dad to sail with him at this event. He had a crew bail due to work committments, as mentioned in my previous post I am quite stoked about that. But as I was looking over the entry list something stuck out like a well, a J-105 bow sprit. The overwhelming theme in this regatta is 15-20 year old designs making an incredible comeback in the sport.

Just look at the list.

13 Wavelength 24's
23 J-24's
10 S2 7.9's
14 Ulitimate 20's
6 Olsen 30's
6 Tripp 26's
7 T-10's
6 Hobie 33's (as class that I won a NA's in back in 1985!)
8 Sonars, (the class that got me my World Championship trophy)

That is 93 of the 199 boats that are listed as entries. I did not even touch on the Corsair boats, (I am not sure when they first came out), or start the arguement as to whether the J-105, J-80 or Melges 24 should qualify for this topic or not. Shit even the Melges 32 is really a 10 year old boat! So I guess nothing is really new in the world.

But I think much like the NOOD regatta platform the boats that I listed above give their owners great bang for the buck, a good structured OD support system, some great sailors and most of all a boat that sail very well. Well OK, (in my opinion), the J 24 does not fit that last bill, but there are 23 of them there!

Anyway, for all of you that are driving from the Michigan, IL, Ohio and Upstate New York areas, including my family, Please drive safe and keep the boats on the trailers behind you and the wheels on the road! Are we about ready for this white shit stop falling?

I know that I am. See all you NOOD'ers in St.Pete!
Cheers,

Tac

St. Pete NOOD

Well it looks like I will be sailing in the St. Pete NOOD regatta after all. I just got the call up from my Dad and I will be joining his crew for the event. I am very stoked up about sailing with him again.

It will be a good event it looks like there are 10 S2 7.9's entered at this time. Will be some good competition and a lot of fun sailing in that class again. I think my whole family is going down to hang out, Mom has the power boat so I will have some pictures that I can post after the event.

It is good to see all the older OD classes represented at this event. I will go into that a little later on. But suffice to say Old School is in the House!

Cheers,
Tac

Boat Show rerun

Well I did in fact attend the Strictly Sail show on Friday and for a little while on Saturday evening. Friday I spent most of my time walking around talking to industry friends and bumping into a few of my customers and friends. I spent some time around the Ultimate 20 booth as my brother Brad was there, that little boat still gets a bunch of people coming by to ask about it and check it out.

I did not spend much time at all looking at boats, in fact I only really looked at three closely at all. Brad and I went up and into the Ultimate 24 that was there. That is an interesting little guy for sure. It will be interesting to see what likes when rebranded the Antrim 25. Good move? Time will tell.

We also went by and looked briefly at the Beneteau 36.7 to see what was up with that class. This boat has a shit load of participation in many several areas including Chicago that has over 25 of these racer/cruisers. We then stopped by the Melges 32 to see the changes that they have had to make to the boat in order to get the motors to work all the time. See picture. Boy it looks more like a Henderson 30 all the time!

On Saturday I went back to the show with two good friends, Doug and Janet Nickel and my beautifull girlfriend, Karyn. (it was her first jaunt to a boat show). We looked around a bit more, ran into more friends and had a couple beers!

Doug and I ventured onto the Bavaria 37 to have a look see. I was very impressed with the wood work and the interior layout of this boat. I was not at all impressed with the steering area or the deck layout. The Nav station was quite nicely laid out and had a good amount of space for computers and read outs. Nice job there.

We then went up to check out the Beneteau 49 but the line was huge so we went onto a 43??? Can't remember the actual model. Still a bad steering layout, on boats this big lets just all agree to put two wheels on them and call it done! So off to the belly of the beast we go. I must say that this boat was not nearly as impressive as the Bravaria.

We then stayed up and waiting in line for the 49. That boats cockpit layout was much better then the other two boats. It has the twin wheels that a good cruising boat should have. I do think that having a mid boom traveller on a cruising boat is a bad idea. They do nothing for sail control and you cannot get proper sheeting most of the time upwind. (while I understand that I look at this from a more racing background, but it does not make sence). I would much rather see a single point sheeting system back by the wheels or even a Hunter "spoiler" where the traveler is up over your head. Just makes more sense to me.

This boat had a beautifull double cabin layout, perfect for a couple that wants to sail/cruise only with one other couple. The aft cabin was awesome! that is where I would park my fat ass while cruising. I was again disappointed in the Beneteau Nav station, you all really need to take a look at the Bavaria, it was far superior. (Kind of wish I would have taken some pictures.)

Anyway, having talked to friends in the industry, I think that the show was again a success for all that were there. I think that I got a few leads that will be helpfull as well!

I will comment more on gear a little later.
Cheers,
Tac

Strictly Sail Chicago

So Tomorrow will be a bit of a weird day for me. I am going to Chicago to walk around the boat show and for the first time, I will have zero affiliation there. It will be a bit strange I am sure.

I have been doing my own thing since June and it will be interesting to see how the show is going and if I can bump into enough people there to maybe pull a little business out of the show without having a booth there.

I am also going to be meeting with friends in the industry to get caught up and just see some faces that I have not seen in a while. The one thing that they all say is "lets get together for a beer"........man, if I have a beer with each of them, I might just be shit faced by the time I leave! Good think Chitown has a good public transport system! No drinking and driving here.

Anyway, I will try to post a little blurb about the show and what I see, what I like and of course what I do not like.

Thanks for stopping by! Here is a funny for the day!