What's Next?

Hey All

Just wanted to keep in touch and let you all know what is happening in this little world of mine! I got news yesterday that I will be sailing a Viper 640 at the St. Pete NOOD regatta next weekend. I am pretty excited about this. I have my old buddies Dan Cheresh and Scott McNeill sailing with me. Originally we were going to sail our Ultimate 20 but when the Viper chance came up we switched over.

This will lead right into the new job. As most of my close friends know I am going to be heading back to Point Edward and working for the family loft sail loft there. I am really excited about the actual job, still a bit bummed out that I am leaving Chicago I really love it here but home is as they say always where the heart is.

I will be working once again with my Dad and brother, this should be a really great team and we all look forward to taking the loft to the next level. One of the first steps is to start a sail development program in the Viper 640 fleet. So not only will I be sailing the Viper for the first time in 10+ years, we will testing the first set of Doyle Boston Sails. (Man is it weird to say that Doyle Boston again! Who would have thought?)

Anyway, I hope to take some pictures and video of the event and sail tuning on Thursday next week. I will post them as they happen.

Well that is all that I know!

Update post Key Weird!

Good day all!

Well I did not do a very good job of keeping this updated during Race Week, but to be quite honest it is tough to write each day when you have gotten your ass handed to you that day :) I guess it is something that I will have to get better at :) I guess the moral of the story is not to get your ass kicked :)

Anyway I had a lot of fun sailing in the Melges 24 class with the boys on Cujo. We had a tough regatta but never let it leave the boat. Which I feel is really important. We just did not have it upwind last week and nothing seemed to worked. Shit, I even drove a couple legs!

Following KW we did a Match race event down there on Saturday and Sunday. The Cujo team changed a bit for that event as we added Mike Buckley as the driver and Bob Clark as the Spinnaker trimmer. We had a much better event losing to Charlie Enright in the Finals.

Well I am back in the Cold of Chicago and working hard on finalizing what is up next for me. I will be letting you all know by next week I think. It is a done deal in my head and now I just have to figure out the exit strategy for here and the entry time for what is next. I am looking forward to the next phase in my life and I am hoping that it will be all that those involved think it will be.

Anyway, it will be a bit weird this weekend as it is the Chicago Strictly Sail show here and I will not be in a booth this year. I think that I am going to stop by the show for a bit on a couple of the days, just to be there and see many people that I am sure will be looking for me at my old job!

I can tell you that if any of you are looking for good sails at a good deal just let me know. As you all know I have many contacts in the sailing world and I will be able to beat most prices out there, especially those of my old job :) So hit me up for a sail quote! I can promise you that the sails that I will sell you will be of the highest quality and be great sails.

Anyway, I will be talking to you all next week, I hope that you have a great weekend and enjoy the show for those who are going.

PS here are a couple shots from Sara Proctor. She shot these great shots in KW. Check her out.

Just a quick note

Well as some of may have heard I am no long with Quantum Sails effective Jan 1 of this year. This was not my choice and unfortunately the hard work and effort that I put in here in Chicago will go for not and I am going to have to start over again. What is one more time?

I want to thank the many people with in Quantum that I worked with on a regular basis, peeps like Wally Cross, Bob Clark, Farley Fontenot, Scott Nixon and Bary Gately. These are great people and it was a pleasure working with you guys and thanks for all that you did.

There will be some good news coming in the very near future that will surprise some and be exciting for others. For me it will allow me to take the last 10 years of my experience to great use and will really cement the future in a great way.

I am getting ready to attend Key West Race Week, I have been signed on to sail on board Cujo a Melges 24 team from Detroit. I am really looking to this regatta as I have not been to KW in a few years and I have not sailed the 24 in a little while either.

We are then going to participate in the first of the Chicago Match Race Center's regatta. This will be sailed in M 24's down there for their first event. Then the regattas will shift back North to Chicago and 8 new Tom 28's that Don Wilson has bought to set up this new center.

The winter of sailing is looking really promissing, I am planning on attending the St. Pete NOOD, J 22 Mid Winters, Charleston Race Week, Annapolis NOOD and hopefully a trip to Uruguay to sail on the exciting new Soto 40, (That is the ride in the picture). If I go down it is to go check the boat for a client who is very serious about picking one up.

So hopefully all of this plus the plan for the future will keep me busy and start to let all the peices fall into place.

As I am my own company again I will try to do a much better job of keeping this up to date. I will also try to get something on here each day of Key West and the Match Event after.
Cheers for now!


Tac