This past saturday at Put-in-Bay Yacht Club our Wave Fleet put on a FREE Learn to Sail Clinic from 9-5 on 10 of our privately owned Waves. Five of the class sailors coached. We got 19 students to attend.., all but two had little or no experience. It was tough but by day's end they were all able sail upwind, reach and sail downwind with success.
I admitted to them in debriefing that we had ulterior motives -- we wanted them to get so interested in sailing they would not only join the club, but buy a Wave and join the fleet.
Many were interested.

Congrats!

I will be in Put in Bay on July 2nd. Anything going on then?

Going to the Philippines to teach sailing at a resort. I have 2 months to train crews to sail 4 F-18's and 3 F-18 rigged H-18's. When completed you will be able to go there rent a bungalo on the beach and have a boat to sail or have a guide sail you if your a novice.

Nice video's... I see a lot of swimming :-) What kind of boat is that (yes Hobbie, but...)I never have seen such a small one.

We also started last season with a camara. See underneath one of our movies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGKB_8Ng49A

I took a young guy out that I met when I offered a free hobie 17 on Craigslist. He hadn't ever seen another beach cat on the water or know a think about sailing. He bought a boat and rented books from the library to get started. We spent the afternoon working on some techniques on the i20, I think we will see him in the local group some.

I coached the Upper Keys Sailing Club Youth Team on Lasers for their big regatta with over 100 boats. Of the three, we got a 2nd in 4.7 and 4th in the Radial Lasers
Rick

Just finished our first juniors class of the year.

Surf City Catamarans.
These people generously donated to our regatta and our raffle helped to make the event a success. We put the sponsor logos ____________________________________

Craig Williams was the sole fatality of the tragic sailing accident off the shore of San Clemente Island, a crew member onboard the Uncontrollable Urge during The Island's Offshore Race from Newport Beach to San Diego. Craig was a beloved husband with a 2 year old daughter, Claire, and one on the way.

The sailing community is one of the best, and the support has been amazing.

http://www.youcaring.com/memorial-f...Williams-husband-father-and-friend/46040

The day before yesterday, I took a friend out sailing a Valk sailboat and we all enjoy very much all the long.The thing I specially learn was that how to select a best quality foam mattress for rest purposes during sailing.

On a different topic ... How can I start a new thread on Hobie 3.5s? I recently came into possession of one and apparently they are pretty rare. Most sailors have never heard of them. In fact, I'm not really sure that a 3.5 is what I have. All I know is that it's a Hobie and only 11 ft long. I'm new to this site and to sailing really, except for a nearly disastrous sailing experience off Mazatlan, Mexico in 1971 aboard a 37 ft Schock built sloop.

When you open the Open Forum there are tow tabs at the top. the one on the left is for NEW TOPIC

And now back to the subject:
OK where do I start? Kokokahi Sailing Club had our annual SandBar regatta this weekend which consists of buoy races on Saturday and a long distance race on Sunday. I've been running and participating when I can in this regatta for some 15 years now and I think I finally have enough knowledgable volunteers to handle the whole regatta. I can now just oversee the well oiled machine. I still did some of the fun stuff like the shirt design and oversee the whole shebang.
So, heres what I've done for sailing lately: lined up crew for two separate boats (one crew was a guy who called me a week ago interested in our club). Since it was blowing 22MPH on Saturday I went around to each skipper and notified them it was their decision if they want to sail in these conditions (all went out), we had a Hobie Tiger pitchpole twice and a Supercat 20 flip once. both times skippers checked to see if the crews were ok before continuing.
Sundays conditions were much nicer at 17MPH but I did mention at the skippers meeting, there are no chase boats so keep an eye out for your fellow sailors. Well a boat was dismasted way out on the course and three of the 14 boats came to the rescue.
A Hobie 21 ended up towing the boat back to the club. And as commodore I made the executive decision to award the H21 skipper first place (which gets to choose from the pile of prizes first)for his unselfish deed to drop out and tow the other boat back.
Lots of stories after both days of racing, prizes for both days.
So, Actually our small group of sailors all did something for sailing today.
Dan Williams, Commodore
Kokokahi Sailing Club
www.Kokokahi-sc.org

OK, first post here! It's been two weeks since I last had the opportunity to sail. It won't break out of the 40s today and the warmest day among my upcoming days off may make it into the upper 50s. Friday I got a new set of sails for the Hobie 16 and I'm anxious to rig them and try them out. So for today I managed to stay off the water and not give us sailors a bad name by getting into trouble as the only boat out on the Merrimack. Heading down the home stretch to Thanksgiving I likely won't get to sail any more this year.

For sailing.... I am giving up several beatiful 65-75 degree weekends to rebuild the Wednesday Night Sailboat Races (which I run/own) on Clear Lake, TX committee boat deck. The boat had plywood covered with carpet and was sagging pretty bad after only 2 years. Through January, our area runs an Icicle Series which has averaged 40-50 mono-morans... I will not be able to get out much before March (unless I get a lot of work done), but I may sneak out on the next 75 degree weekday...

With the races, I formed a beginner class that limits the helmsman to less than 5 years of racing experience. The crew is encouraged to be novice as well, but an experienced crew can sail, but cannot touch any controls; just coach. We had an average of 4-5 boats for the year with about a dozen boats overall that raced in the class. I am encouraged this class will build.

I attended the Catamaran Racing Association of Wisconsin's Winter Party/meeting last weekend at Kurt Korte's house.

www.craw.org

I intend to make all, or nearly all of the regattas on the schedule this year, including either the GT300 in June, or the F18 Nats. in October- both in TX, maybe both!

So I'm saying I'm simply staying involved with my local club, and attending Regatta's- and I feel that's what I'm doing for sailing. Without people actually attending and sailing- it doesn't work. ;-)

This count?

Hobie full page ad in Sports Illustrated 50th anniversary edition:

Yes. Yes it does!!!!!

Mike

We've already arranged for our Fleet insurance and our beach site on Lake Erie and we were expecting to open at the beginning of May. Unfortunately, Lake Erie is completely iced over and we think there will still be ice there. We may have a June opening for our Buffalo NY club instead: wnycatamaran.org

I just noticed the boats.