Daggerless

Thanks to John Eaton and his fleet for hosting a wonderful event. Great venue, terrific company, and excellent competitors. Hope to make it again next year.

I'll second that. It was nice that he set up the tail wind for my drive home. Great gas mileage, even though I had the hammer down the whole way.

Worth the 860 miles (each way) I drove. (11.5 hours home - you figure out how fast that was - and that included 3 stops for gas.)

Where else can you sail with 19 Hobie 14's? (other than nationals).

Thanks again, John

You betcha Johnny, nice regatta. The sailing was great too. I still have a bit of a hangover though, and I am pretty sunburned.......

Thank you all gentlemen for the kind words and taking a day off just to drive here! We had some from the Dallas area as well, couldn't have dreamed of more participation from the sailors in the area.

Only three things you can't control when choosing a date, precipitation, temperature and wind. Other than a tornado Friday (there's no place like home...there's no place like home...) no rain, 76 Saturday, 80 Sunday, and decent breezes both days ("you should have been here last weekend", seriously Nathans' I17R carbon mast busted on pitchpole, trashing the main, thanks for insurance!)

Christina Bradshaw (our rep for the '07 Women's 16 Nationals) was the one with the answers for all my concerns, asked me all the right questions, took care of all the prizes, and endless details. Paul Eaton and Abby Reust for making the menu and carting in fresh food and coffee daily. Jim Sammis for making and setting directional signs, driving the committee boat. Ron Benedick for shuttling the borrowed RC boats back and forth daily. Paul Moore for moving several pounds of cold beverage and ice. My sons Jeff, Dan and Paul's computer prowess in getting my t-shirt design in to whatever format file that was. My wife Lynn for worrying and quizzing me about all the little things. Matt, she was as red as you at dinner but you should have seen her sunburn at 10:30 Saturday night! She had a great time being beach captain for a day and enjoyed meeting everyone.

Kansas Sailing Association loaned us the RC boat and pin skiff, all their marks, anchors, boards, flags, and sent half the KU sailing team over (unsolicited) to help us out when they could have been working on their sailing center!

Dave Rhodes of the Corps of Engineers insisted we use the swimming beach do to the high water.

Race Committee was OKC Fleet 131, PRO Phil Collins, with Bev Collins, Mark Benge, Tom Page, Ron and Kathy Knak, Heather and Stu Morrison (Wichita Fleet 27) on their nephews' chase boat.

Kenny and Donna MacIntosh and John Mork of Fleet 25 in Tulsa provided the beautiful, solid wood trophies.

I had a big birthday party to host Friday night in Kansas City and the weekend went off without a hitch.

It wasn't me but the entire extended Hobie family, that makes these things work and participants are the vital part of that equation.

Two of the coolest things that happened to me (aside from eating dinner and conversing with MBounds) were,

Friday midday Andy Spalding (KU Sailing team), Bruce Fields (aka Wrinklie) and myself put together my 1977/1978 conglamoration H14 for Andy to race. (Did you know that Bruce went to KU for two years prior to the Korean war breaking out? He grew up in Topeka) Now that was neat. Helping Bruce set the rudders, fine tuning and hearing him tell Andy every thing he knew about sailing a 14 fast. Andy had a fourth in a Saturday race.

The other was crewing for Christina's husband Matt Bradshaw. Prior to racing Saturday and Sunday he'd been out piloting a boat with me for about 45 minutes one day last summer. He's always there watching their two year old son Caden and their huge dog/s while Chris and their daughter Cori (grandpa Roger Taha's crew) get their practice in. Answering all his questions, getting to the point where we only blew about 30% of our tacks and seeing the smile on his face when we got her really rolling in the last race made the whole weekend for me.

I'm still giddy, I'll finally feel it tomorrow, on Tuesday morning.

Another season begins.

_________________
hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

Hey, what exactly was that pipe thing in the water surrounding the beach?
Glad to see you made it back safe and sound.

That big pipe was added to help define the swimming area, which will be "officially" open this weekend (that's why part of the pipe was still on the beach). The NO BOATING buoys were'nt enough to keep crazed powerboaters out of the swimming area. Also added over the winter were those big red NO BOAT MOORING signs. A bit more water patrol enforcement (along with citations) is coming this year.

Local Fourm lurkers, come on out for Free Ride Saturday, May 5th at the Bloomington East ramps

_________________
hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

So where are the results? I want to see how badly all you guys got treated on the water by Sheila.

Brian C

Results are on the way back to Bev from Chris, then to Kim for posting on the Division 14 website (wait...I think Kim's on holiday) Probably first part of next week, check here periodically.

http://www.div14.hobieclass.com/

I recall it was Matt Bounds, Mark Ralph, then Sheila? Some fierce competition.

_________________
hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

Hey, I rolled in at 13th place in case you were wondering....

Matt and I finished 7(DNF) 6 6 5 6 6
in B fleet and I think we were the only boat out of 38 to capsize.
I haven't had that much fun at a regatta since I started racing again in '05

_________________
hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

HAHAHA!! You guys went over in that 7kt hurricane? Water was warm I bet! I never came close to even thinking about traping out. It was funny to watch Fields trapped out the whole time though.

Yes sir! Broke the righting line too, hence the DNF due to assistance.
I was the one swimming the mast around and actually it wasn't that bad...once I got my breath back

_________________
hobiejohn at earthlink dot net
Fleet 297

UUGGHHH!!! Sounds dreadful. I got my feet wet coming in over the pipe thing.

What!? Saturday I had Benji out on the wire almost the whole time. We even had some great double trap going on! Course you weigh a little bit less than both of us.