NAC 2012, Leaving Lake Carlyle, Friday 6/29

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RC made wise decision and had 2 races Thursday, although the wind didn't cooperate exactly as planned. The original schedule was for one race Thursday, and one race Friday. Forecasted temperatures were for 104-107 deg or, at least over 100 deg for both Thurs and Fri, and they wanted to try to get us in and out early Thursday, and off the parking lot before the heat of the day. They rescheduled racing to start at 0900 on Thursday, hoping their plan would work. Unfortunately, the wind died during the first beat, the Challenger division couldn't even get off the line, and the RC abandoned the race in swift fashion. We floated around for a bit, then they sent us in for an on shore postponement. The predicted wind was out of the West / Southwest, and we weren't seeing any of that early in the day. They rescheduled us for a 1:00 start. So much for getting out of the parking lot in the heat of the day.
Fortunately, the wind came up, and after a trip back to the campsite to see the girls (who are really doing great, by the way, this camping thing seems to agree with them), they got 2 races off in the afternoon. Did we mention it was a dry heat? Like a convection oven left on long after the Thanksgiving turkey was finished and dessert was served. The weathermark was near the most southern part of the lake and the puffs that came down from the dam were quite something. Weird to have such a hot breeze near the cool water, but smart hydration kept Team FL in the game!
Yummy pig roast and awards dinner, much nicer to have the racing done, and have all the awards presented at this evening event instead of after racing on Friday when we're all hot and trying to get ready to leave. As stated on previous post, Jeff and Amy won the belt buckle for the 2nd time, Davis Island won the Fleet Award, and Team Hobbs takes home the Father/Son award. There were some other awards, too...
It was really nice to have so many boats from FL represented!
Next big things: Wife/Husband Regatta in October, Muscle Shoals, AL We have our lodge reservation, do you??!!!
Sarasota Midwinters in March, Team FL- get your volunteer hats on!
Next NAC, Lake Norman, NC Only 10 hours from Tampa area! Team FL- let's do it again!

Friday, we left the campsite around 8:30 am. Crossed bridge into KY around 1040, or so, we started thinking about where we would stop for the night, and had anticipated we would stop before Atlanta if it looked like we would be in the midst of rush hour on Friday evening, so Adairsville it is! We contacted Amy and Jeff who left after us from IL, when they said they might not be meeting us at the campground (and pool) because of a breakdown. ugh. They were by the side of the road in Paducah, and at the time of this post, it looks like that's where they'll be spending the night.

The new boat is ok, though...there was a wicked 3-way with boats at the end of the regatta. (A wild transport crew shuffle started the regatta...John Kreidler and Tom Lawton rode together to the regatta, Adam Keene flew into Indy and rode with Carrie Carpenter, and Ryan Malmgren and Harry Carpenter rode alone from what I know. Adam ended up crewing with JK, TL crewed for Ryan, and Carrie was with Dad, but back to the boat story...) Jeff bought the new boat Harry brought to the regatta, Mark Taylor bought Jeff and Amy's 4925, and Harry went home with Blastoff - Mark's 4321. Neato!!

We arrived into GA around 4:50 pm ET and one more hour to Adairsville. Harvest Moon RVPark. Good reviews on the site. Has pool, 'nuff said.

6:00 pm ET 105 deg. Forecast is a low of 68 deg. tonight, how can that happen? Unlike Lake Carlyle, we are sweating like "Piggies." The RV did well in the heat, we worked it hard today. By 8:30 pm, we had been in the pool twice. Slight negative, no bevvies allowed in the pool area...we'll get around that somehow, no worries : )

NAC 2012 Races 4-5

The Lintons rallied to overcome a pretty big deficit to win the NAC for the second time.

We rallied a little as well to get 13th.

Davis Island won the best fleet award using Jeff's, our's and Greiner Hobb's scores.

It was way HOT, reported by many to be 107 at the high. The puffs down by the dam were like opening the oven door and getting the heat blast.

Scores are up at fssa.com. Will write more tomorrow, we are zapped.

NAC 2012 Race 1 -3

The RC decided to change the schedule so we did 3 races today. The forecast for Thursday and Friday is for highs around 103 to 105. Today was only 90 something and breeze was nice.

So after a relatively short postponement to address some scoring issues in the Qualifying series we got out on the water. With nice wind and no general recalls it didn't take long to knock out 2 races. Sadly, they favor returning to the club for lunch so around 12:30 thats what we did. The next harbor gun would be at 2:30 for a 3:00pm warning, this was widely unpopular with most racers but....

It worked out and we got the 3rd race done and were back in the club by 5 or a little before. All the races were tricky but the third had less wind and seemed trickiest, at least to us. We never had much going and ended up with all three scores in the teens. What can you do, make a little mistake and lose 5 boats.

The Red boat is kicking butt, Kelly is second and The Lintons are third!!

So back to the weather, the start on Thursday has been bumped to 9 am to try to get us off the water before it gets really hot. If it works out there will be 2 races sailed and that will be a series so no sailing Friday. Works for us, we can head south to Florida and cool down.

Results= fssa.com.

NAC Qualifying Day 2

Schedule-wise this was the lightest day of the week since we only needed to get one more qualifier race in. There was a nice breeze left over from Monday, so we had no delays. Most crews were prepping for heavy air but by the time the signal sounded it had dropped to under 10. The first group started clean and the second did the same with only a slight delay between signals. The two fleets became one which made the RC's job of scoring everyone a little tricky. There were big packs of boats finishing at nearly the same time. UGH!

The gang from Florida seems to make the cut for the Championship Division which is a releif to all. You never know about these things. As of now we have not actually seen the results but we think we know...

The best place to get results is fssa.com.

The rest of the day was pretty much filled with beer drinking with a little diversion in to the town of Carlyle. An interesting little place.

A bunch of the sailers rented lakeside cabins and they got together to host a party. What a sweet arrangement, a nice elevated bluff with a great view out over the lake.

So tomorrow starts the real racing and rumor has it they may attempt to get 3 races in instead of just 2. The weather forecast for Thursday and Friday is HOT, depending on the source they are calling for highs between 102 and 106. Yike! So the idea is to avoid some of that heat.

Out.

NAC 2012 Qualifying Day 1

Finally, the day we've been waiting for! Racing!! There are 3 Qualifying races scheduled for today and tomorrow, and we were able to sail 2 of them today. Wind was good, another knot or two higher and it would have been uncomfortable. It came from the Northeast and was able to fetch down the 15 mi long lake and that made for some nice swells to surf downwind.

The first race was 4 legs, downwind finish, and the second race, to our disbelief, was a 5 legger. sheesh. More upwind practice in breeze, though, I guess. Seems like finishing downwind would have been preferred since that end of the course was near the marina cove, but maybe they had difficulty seeing boat numbers downwind. 

Team Florida is doing well so far, and Team Mad Sails had some good finishes, too. Tomorrow looks to be a little less windy, so that will be nice.

The pups seem to be taking this all in stride. Presently, sleeping on the floor of the RV. Missy found the front seat this morning and she thought she looked pretty cute riding shotgun!

Looking at the weather at home, though....tornado watches, floods, craziness!! Everybody- hunker down!!

The weather here has been nice so far, hopefully they are wrong about the forecast high temps for the end of the week (102-104 deg. yikes!) The campsite area has been really comfortable with nice breeze and shade. (We'd love to post some pics, but technical difficulties prevent it at this time - isn't that always the case. Thought we had it worked out since the change to Apple-ness. Come back to the site after we get home, we'll see if we can figure it out!) The marina parking lot, on the other hand, where the boats are is quite a bit like Africa-hot. After racing we were happy to get back to the coolness of AC and shade.  Dinner plans include some chicken on the barbee, yum.

Still no pics.

NAC 2012 Pre Regatta Prep

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Measurement Day 1, arrived early, received our assignment, and discovered that yellow is bad. There were 3 randomly assigned colors to organize measurement, and yellow includes weighing the hull and measuring the centerboard. We were yellow... and bummed.
3rd to the hoist to be weighed, CB didn't quite make it, but Dave had the forethought to ask Harry to bring a new board and we made quick work of switching out and we were done. Other competitors began to arrive and it was a neat reunion time.

The club offered brat night for dinner and the beer trailer opened early. Nice beer trailer ... 4 selections to choose from! Dog walking and biking to the bath houses for showers  in the dark, and all asleep at a reasonable hour. We seem to be settling  in to a pattern of early to bed and early to rise, guess it is an RV thing. 

Sunday, June 24, 2012

We still needed to measure our sails to complete registration, soooo, after a morning walk with the beasts, and a run for Wake and Kim, it was on the bikes for the ride to the club. We are very appreciative for the bikes, the location here, requires them if there are no 4 wheeled vehicles for transport. The campground is large and it even doesn't make sense to shower at the bath houses because you work up a sweat riding back to camp!  sheesh!

Finished measurement, adjusted a few things on the boat, and returned to let the dogs out and grab some lunch at the RV. The wind came up this afternoon, and we decided to do some practice and tuning, unfortunately, the wind died. Team Hobbs from Tampa won the Junior Championship and friends Melanie Dunham and Carrie Carpenter won the Women's Championship. We all came in,  and got ready for dinner back at the club including awards. Back to camp walk with the animals, and sleep. Gotta be ready for tomorrow!!! First day of racing, Qualifying rounds. 
Skippers meeting 9:30 with first start at 10:30. Out.

P.S. We are unable to upload pictures, hope to figure that out.

NAC 2012 - Getting There

10:00 Wednesday, July 30, 2012

Take off!  So many things to prepare! Kim was able to get out of work, thanks to her fine coworkers, and we were able to get on the road earlier than expected. Puppies have known for a while that something was in the works, and today, their excitement level peaked.

Our goal today was to drive north of the FL state line to avoid high traffic times in Atlanta and Nashville tomorrow. We figured if we got within 2 hours of Atlanta we could try to start the next morning and be just after the morning rush. That would also allow us to hit Nashville around 3:00pm and beat the afternoon rush. So that was the plan.

The dogs surprised us upon entering the RV. Lexi, the less outgoing one, usually seeks refuge under the dinette table, and Missy, the navigator, likes to sit between us and is on the alert watching the action through the front window. Today, Lexi scooted to Missy's spot in the front, and Missy established herself under the table. Missy quickly figured out something was off, stepped over Lexi, sat on her, and encouraged her to take a back seat. Lexi caught the drift and all was well.

We occupied our time with the third installment of the Hunger Games series, The Mockingjay, Almost done! They go quickly, interesting stuff, not exactly cheery but interesting.

4:00 Arrival! first stop, Twin Oaks Campground in Elko, GA. Only 1/10 mi off the highway, EZ on, EZ off! More than just convenient, Dave did some research pre-trip, and this came highly recommended on the RV and camping sites. Even better, Dave joined a camping club called Passport America (and we highly recommend this to all the RVers) and we get 1/2 price on the site! this place has a pool, hot tub, dog walk and a fenced in run. Missy says, "Tennis ball!"

After experiencing the pool and dog walk area, we found very few Mosquitos, but a whole lot of gnats. No biggie. A lovely evening with a nice breeze, and way better than overnighting in a Walmart of Truck stop where we would need to run the generator to power the AC.

Day 2 of travel, 6/21/12

The girls were very good last night (much better than on a "trial" sleepover in the RV last week), only woke up a couple of times, ready for the next adventure. When we finally did wake up, they were calm, patiently waiting for Kim to tie up her shoes.

The park has a 1/4mi loop, just like a track! the girls took Kim for a 3/4mi training run--wheeee! With frequent sniffing stops, so many new scents since many campers seem to travel with their dogs.

Can't believe while writing all this, Kim forgot to feed the girls this am. 
She remembered around 10:00 while fixing herself a snack. Very wrong!!

Oops! The license plate is coming loose from the trailer as we are passing through Atlanta. It's really one of the only parts of the trailer we can see in the rear view mirror from the RV. It is dangling down a bit and possibly dragging a corner but the traffic is thick but moving so we are not stopping. The idea of effecting a roadside repair with a million trucks passing seems really stupid, plus how much could a new plate cost? We consult the map and find the next rest stop is 20 miles northwest of town and decide we will stop there, the plate will be there, or it won't. Finished Mockingjay, phew! got a little emotional toward the end. (Read; Kim is crying alot and I hate it when that happens) Now, on to something a little more lighthearted and fun...Tim Dorsey? Carl Hiaasen?

Seen on a license plate : BLESSD, like.

Around 10:40, we're past Atlanta- unscathed.
Rest stop just past exit 306, the plate is still there so we replace a bolt do a little dog walk and were off.

12:45 Into and out of TN/GA. Hwy 24 is a little schizophrenic near Chattanooga. Had us concerned for a moment that we were going the wrong way. Ah, there we go, back into TN and the Central time zone. Fun! An extra hour we weren't counting on this would help our plan for getting through Nashville. It had been a while since I passed through here and I forgot how mant times you have to exit right or exit left to continue on I-24. We were going good and almost through when we spot the sign stay left for I-24 while we are in the extreme right lane. Ugh. So we try to tuck in behing 18 wheeler guy but little car guy won't let us in. With RV and trailer were are about 55 feet so a bit of room is needed. With time running out Dave decides to gun it and we pass 18 wheeler guy and another car and cross 3 lanes of traffic to just make our left exit. You don't see too many RV'ers trying moves like that and for good reason.

2:45 Central time
crossing state line into KY. Puppies are sleeping, even over the rough roads.
After a little research, we decided on a campground just to the NW of the Land Between the Lakes National Rec. area in KY. It's a little east of Paducah which probably means absolutely nothing to you but we thought that was a fun name so had to work it in.Still a lot of daylight left to set up, catch a swim in the pool, take care of the pups. That leaves only a few hours left for tomorrow.

So the Nashville Atlanta plan worked like a charm, gotta love that.

4:00pm Central time
Fill up with gas and stop for the night at Cypress Lakes RV park in Calvert City, KY. We are in the pool and the cocktails by 5:00pm and thinking that this is a fine way to travel.

Day 3, Friday 6/22/12
Short drive to Carlyle. Departing Cypress Lake Campground. Some thoughts...bathrooms: seen better, pool bath reminds us of the beach baths on Dunedin causeway en route to Honeymoon Island. Kim has noticed she appreciates hand soap and paper towels at the bathroom sinks.
Met some nice folks, lots of full-timers there. Interesting  site. Gary Yamamoto's custom bait was adventurous and impressive. Huge advertisement wrap (will have to go to baits.com when we have a chance) on a trailer towing a double decker boat/car trailer. Watched him load up this am, a one man show with a power boat and a 4-Runner below. Hooked everything up and was out in less than an hour. He had done this before!

Decided on Janet Evanovitch, we're up to Explosive 18...amazing how many books can be written about a bumbling bounty hunter. Nice brain candy after the seriousness of Hunger Games.

Missy couldn't be any closer to Dave. Wish I could take a picture, but it would be too dark. She's practically in the footwell. Guess she didn't mind being in the hottest place in the cab, she decided to lie on the floor right above the transmission which gets pretty hot.

Seen on the back of a car being towed.. "Be patient, I'm pushing this big RV!" Think this would be fun on the back of the Flying Scot.

Road to CarlyleRte 127 from south-all kinds of farmland around. Apparently these folks specialize in corn, dabble in soybeans and try their hand at something that resembles corn but not quite. May have to stop and ask...

Walmart stop before campground, Carlyle is a small town with a crowded, but clean and fairly new Walmart. 1/2 hr in the store, and no "Walmartians" were spotted this must be a world record. We notice a white truck towing a Scot leaving the store parking lot. After a few minutes, we caught up at the sailing center, and said hey to Henry Picco!

Dropped the boat off with help from the lovely Harbormaster, Mary. Team Taylor right behind us, with Team Hobbs not too far behind. 

Notice another boat across from ours in the parking lot with a Masthead Enterprises top cover. Could it be? Team 4925? Jeff and Amy had been dealing with some deferred maintainence on their RV which delayed the departure. They got everything straightened out, and drove straight through. Hard Core.

We're in campsite spot Lucky #7, hope that works out for us! Sho'nuff, the Chalet and her inhabitants look settled in. By 2:00, we're getting settled in our spot.