Return to Hobie.com
Hobie Forums
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 12:41 pm

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1 post ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 6:42 pm 
Offline
Site Rank - Admiral

Joined: Thu Sep 21, 2006 4:54 pm
Posts: 230
Location: Seattle, Washington
Potholes Youth Season Opener

Hobie Division 4 held a Spring season kick-off event at Potholes State Park on April 3-4. The event was planned as a fun sail for the youth in our area and was the first in a series of youth events planned this year. Other events planned to help promote youth sailing are a clinic at Sail Sand Point on May 10th and two youth-only regattas – Summer Celebration, July 26-27 and Oktoberfest, September 27-28, both at Sail Sand Point.

The weekend at Potholes State Park started out with cooler than normal temperatures. Fortunately, it was mostly dry with only one squall coming through on Saturday. With plenty of sunshine, the air temperature was in the lower 60’s, but the water temperature was 42, so dry suits were a must. The winds stayed light for the most part.

We had sailors attending from across the Pacific Northwest. Participants came from as far north as Vancouver BC, and as far east as Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. The majority were camped together on several adjacent campsites. Evenings were spent around the camp fire, with a BBQ potluck on the last night. There were sailing stories, s’mores and guitar playing until late in the evening.

The sailing was on six Hobie Waves brought to the event and three Hobie Tigers that came out to do some pre-season tuning. Some of the older kids jumped at the chance to go for a ride on the high performance Tigers. There were also a few boats that came out just to enjoy the sailing on the lake. We saw a F18HT, FX One, Hobie 18s, a Hobie 14 and three dinghies that came from the Chelan Sailing Association.

The high point of the weekend was the Waves race on Saturday when a make-shift buoy was placed and six Waves did a beach start – first one around the buoy and back. There were very few moments when there weren’t any boats out on the water.

It was quite a challenge to keep the kids suited up and sailing. With a limited number of dry suits, it was a real changing drill when the boats would hit the beach and the kids would swap suits. Special thanks to Sail Sand Point who lent us the extra sailing gear we needed and for the use of their life jackets. Thanks also to Jerry Valeske and Miles More who brought the safety chase boats for the event. Also, thank you to every one that helped out with the safety boat operation and the beach captains that made the whole operation come together.

I believe we succeeded in our goal to get the youth from our area out sailing early this year. We had 29 youth, plus their parents attend this, our first youth event for this year. Also there were nearly as many adults there to help in making the event a success.

Mike Hensel
Hobie Fleet 95

Image
Image
Image

_________________
Mike Hensel
'86 Hobie 18, '93 Hobie 14, '80 Hobie 14(restso in progress)
Wind in your sails, water in your shoes, great day!


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1 post ] 

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Jump to:  
© Hobie Cat Company. All rights reserved.
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group