Thank you for beating me to it. I was about to start a thread for Tradewinds reports, so we can use this one <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.

First of all, I have attached an aerial photo of Founders Park, the regatta site. The beach is halfway down on the left side of the photo. This is a 55-acre property, with baseball fields, soccer fields, basketball court, skateboard park, huge swimming pool that is used for training by northern colleges that come down here for about a month in the winter. Tennis courts, kids playgrounds, golf driving range, bocci ball court, jogging path, dog park. You name it, they have it.

I'll just kind of do a blog-style thing on what has happened so far.

I guess you already know that Mike Easton and Tripp Bird brought a Formula 18 down from Massachusetts and broke their mast in a pitchpole while sailing on Blackwater Sound a day or so ago. They were not able to get another mast, so they have both chartered Hobie Waves for the regatta. This brings the Hobie Wave fleet up to 14 at this point, which will probably be the biggest fleet.

With the 20-knot winds expected, I hope Mike and Tripp will have some fun on the Waves, even though they are very disappointed at not being able to sail their boat in the F18 Midwinters.

35 boats registered today, and we are expecting as many as another 30 to register tomorrow morning from 8-10 a.m.

Barb and I were both at registration, and a number of people commented on how wonderful the facilities are at Founders Park. They said it is a lot better than Gilbert's. Duh! The only thing lacking is a tiki bar, but people are coping with having to hike over to the beer pavilion in order to imbibe -- or at least do it very discreetly, if they do it at the beach.

The sailors discovered that there actually IS a way to get to the beach with mast up -- just have to roll over a little hill and a little valley. So everybody is getting onto the beach with no problems.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful -- sunny, warm, and windy. Several boats were out sailing today.

Is it possible that we will be able to have TWO good days of racing at Tradewinds this year?

Everybody LOVES the T-shirts -- long-sleeved, white, with the "I'd rather be sailing" picture on the back. But we should have ordered more smalls. Lots of women sailing here this year, which is wonderful. It is starting to look like the old days.

If I sail, maybe Barb will have some way of posting to this thread occasionally on Saturday to update you on what is going on. She will be doing the scoring from the regatta headquarters, which is our motorhome, parked over by the beach.

By the way, skippers meeting is at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, and first flag is at noon.