Friday, September 11, 2009

LASER FOLKS COME TO HELP

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TILLERMAN stopped by yesterday with a suggestion on Fleet building. He is telling us how he had contests with the Sunfish Fleet. First sailing Sunfish and then Lasers. Engage the other fleets and see what shakes out.

Actually we don't want to be in open competition with the other fleets. The more sailors, the more times a few of them, will want to sail single on a small boat. Also the Laser is a good second boat to hang in garage for those days the big boat racing is not happening.

This week I wrote this report on our Wednesday evening Sail About (not really racing.).

"I don't know what is happening to this crazy Portsmouth thing. Ray Laguna wants to form a Portsmouth Fleet. Like we don't have one. Hey, what has Sam been doing for the past 3 years??

Then it looks like the Carlton and Aggie Brown with the San Juan 21 are the only ones really interested. They have the boat is the water and ready to go but not wind and no RC. Then they are off to check on grand babies-- that's OK, there is no wind and no RC anyway.

Ray knows that the wind will be bad so he is off firing his pistol with gun group.

Now Jim Orth with the Lido wants to sail P. Ron Stevenot (new member), the granddaughter and the Omega want to sail P. Charles Mancino and the Precision 15 think that racing P would be a step up from single cruising. Steve Hayden (the lightening guy) will send the little fellow out in the Sunfish with the Lasers.

Now Wednesday evening, the folks that started all this, Carlton and Aggie Brown show up with Kevin Somebody that wants to join LESC and race his Oday Day Sailor. That is another P boat.

Now that is great, right. New members, growing new fleet-- but then they all get in Lasers. Carleton Brown, Aggie Brown, Kevin got emergency call and couldn't stay, Kim Kelley (full rig is a fair amount of wind), DENNIS OLDHAM, (RETIRED AND RUNNING OUT OF THINGS TO DO-- ask him about the wind, Darcy Jensen (one of our regulars and has to go home to study CALCULUS. I am glade I don't go to high school these days.) Luke Yates in Laser and part of time with the neighbor kid on the bow. Sasha had the Opti out. Craig Yates brought his new/old Phantom (like a biggish Sunfish)out and Darcy sailed it some.

Gosh, if those P guys would just sail Lasers it would save a lot of fuss.

The Pizza Lady came through.

We saw the rest of the "Morning Light". They made it to Hawaii, but didn't win. Sam is glad he doesn't have a 52 foot boat and can sail and then go home for dinner and TV. Luke want to do the Morning Light trip and be the guy they hoist to the top of the mast to see if they can see Hawaii yet.

Next week it is back to North U and we will try to get the marks out earlier to have some race starts if any of the P fleet guys want to sail Lasers again.

Any way it was a lot of fun and sunset is about 7:28 now."

SO MAYBE, SUPPORT THE P FLEET AND PICK UP SOME LASER SAILORS.

Now that is the last idea I have to help build a fleet. Do you think so?? When is he going to get back to "howtosailthe laser"?
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1 comment:

  1. You make a good point about not wanting to compete directly with other fleets when building a Laser fleet. I was very mindful of this at the club I mentioned. However at that club there was a culture of almost everyone having a Sunfish and at least one other boat. There was Sunfish only racing on Wednesday nights and racing for all classes on the weekends. So it was quite OK to encourage members to be members of both the Sunfish and Laser fleets.

    I guess the real message is to be sensitive to the culture and politics of your club and don't piss off the other fleets (too much).

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