The Gator Bowl 2011

The unavoidable occurred; we are about packed and ready to leave home and... creepy neighbor (CN) appears seemingly out of nowhere. He is lurking at and around his house under construction right next to ours. Fortunately, we are about to roll so we shoosh him away and head out. The bright side is he wanted to discuss the type of fence that will soon separate his place from ours. My advice; the taller the better to which I get the tilted head puzzled look similar to what you get from the dog. It turns out the cool neighbor on the other side of CN is moving; partly due to CN. Cool neighbor got wind of CN's possible plans of not having a fence at all! Cool neighbor took matters in his own hands and.. OUT!

We are thinking of moving too, but that is a blog topic for another time.

We recently finished a Kay Scarpetta novel by Patricia Cornwell. She has a number of books in the series, the main character is a coroner in and around Richmond VA. The coroner part is pretty interesting but we are both in agreement that her writing style is just too tedious so we are happy to be done with that. For our trip to Jax we are starting a David Baldacci novel, Deliver us from Evil. We shall see. For me, the jury is out on him too, but I am keeping an open mind. I was in the mood for a Thorn book, Robert W. Hall, but our inventory is lacking.

We arrive at the Rudder Club about 2:30 after an uneventful trip. Uneventful is good when considering we are in a new/used RV.

Here we have RV row. We are at right, the Lintons center, and at left we have the John and John/designer/condo/mobile including the much sought-after faux granite countertops.

We intentionally arrived after them for the;

preferred waterfront view...except for the pesky suv's, forest of pines, ratty dock and interstate highway bridge. But hey!

It has become a mini-tradition to gather at Trent's on Friday night for dinner. Trent's is a little dive not far from the club but the beer is cheap and you can eat the food with few ramifications. I think our headcount was 22 which really makes us popular with the hostess/pissed off door cop-ette. Having no real seating choices we settled in on the outdoor patio, outdoor patio in Jax. in Dec. is a lot like the word "brisk". They have one of those gas heaters that went a long way toward keeping us comfortable, until the gas ran out. The staff seemed a little iffy on the refueling process but we had Andy Hayward in the crowd so, no problem.

Come Saturday morning, it was obvious we were going to see a nice turnout of Scot-ticians, 25 to be exact, very cool. There were also a few Snipes and Lasers, this would probably be a good intro to the video that was posted on Youtube so; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZDKiHVl1V8 Pretty cool but my advice is, don't blink.

We did three races in about 12 to 15 that was steady from the NE. Pretty sure this was the most steady I have seen at the RC. Oh yeah, there was a mess of General recalls. A strong ebb current opposing the solid breeze and you get the idea. It was a really great day of sailing with much starting practice so all is good.

Donna and Jon always do a great job with the food and this year they brought in some Cuban chow that was up to their high standard. They got on everyone's good side by handing out free beer, so there you go.

We are expecting a little warmer weather and more sun on Sunday but it seems the breeze may be a little iffy. We wake up to...

Fog...WTF

The warning signal was scheduled for 9:55, so at about 9:50, in about 1.8 knots of breeze the RC decided to bang out the first general recall of the day. Did I mention the current is flowing north against the zephyr of a breeze from the north. Hmmm. The RC strategy worked perfectly and killed enough time for the wind do build to about 4 to 5 so we try again. Blah, blah, blah, racing, racing, racing. It was a good race when it was all said and done, especially for Paul Abdullah (Thistle class champion). He managed a huge comeback to grab a bullet and widen his slight lead from Saturday. Those in hot pursuit were John Aras, Jeff Linton and Jim Egan.

The fifth and final race started out ok, but quickly landed on my personal top ten list of most frustrating races of all time. This also earned the "sailing sucks" tag on this blog post, there are more of those if you care. During the second beat the breeze was fading fast but the current was going strong, an ok combo for a shortened finish at the weather mark but not ok for a leeward finish against the flow. Nuff said.

Hearty congratulations to Paul Abdullah and his crew Alex who bested the previously mentioned group of stars! Results should be up soon on the Rudder Club website.

We FL-ians are always grateful for the company of the Northerners who come to play, the Privateer YC sent three; Rob Fowler, Bill Humphreys and Ed Craig. Ryan Malmgren jetted in from WI, while his able crew, Tom Lawton, drove the boat down from the Carolinas. I like that deal! John and John did the MD and VA rep and of course Charlie and Nancy Fowler dropped in for communion on their way south to the Keys. Despite their best efforts Wally remains a Gator!

Still chasing the Linton's, we are used to it!

Out.

Jeff Penfield Memorial Regatta - Sarasota

Our blogging is sadly out of date, but we have an excellent excuse. The little pc netbook is just about officially dead, so we don't even bring it with us any longer. Even when it was working, it was so finicky a short tempered person like me just wanted to smash it into little pieces, so the karma was all wrong anyhow.

We recently got a nice new Mac desktop (our first apple product) so that is where the blogging will take place for the foreseeable future. I must say the wireless keyboard is sweet especially considering that I was originally a little dubious. It looks funky. Maybe an iPad will be next, which means daily updates again...

Speaking of making purchases, we just made a big one...an RV! Yes, an iPad would be the perfect companion to the RV. We are now officially members of the gas guzzling, lane hogging, traffic slowing, money spending, etc. club. I am also pretty sure I will be routinely traveling with a turn signal on for extended periods of time (the clicking sound is faint)while having no intentions of turning. This is nearly a requirement for FL residency so we might blend right in with the masses. Sarasota was the maiden voyage, it doesn't get much better than that.

I was pleasantly surprised with how it drove and the power it had. It is built on a Ford chassis and has the V-10 engine, so towing a boat or car is no problem. The naming process is underway and the two leading possibilities are: 1- Pig Rig, 2- Bob. The first should be obvious, the second is from the movie "RV" with Robin Williams. It's funny.

Here is our waterfront spot at the club with Amy verifying rear clearance

We arrived Friday late afternoon and it was already chilly. Of course, we had a front passing thru right on schedule. This means wind from the NW which clocks right for the next few days and weakens, usually.... Think midwinters. Oddly, the forecast for Saturday was mid teens and Sunday was to be more windy, a little bass ackwards.

We did three races Saturday in this;

Scores were close, Mark Taylor held a lead over Jim Egan and four of us were tied for third.

By Sunday am, the forecast now called for a little less breeze, especially early so we confidently selected the new sails and were off. The first of two races was sailed in choppy whitecaps, here is the picture of that;

The second race was another story, the breeze picked up in the sequence and spiked from there. I think there were five capsizes and quite a few folks saying, "Let's get the hell out of here!" As we arrived at the first leeward mark an S flag was flying. A good number of boats decided that was the finish while a few of us undecideds thought this could mean a weather finish. So up we went again just to be sure. Part way up we can see there is no way the mark boat could get there for a finish since they were in rescue mode. The committee boat remained on station, maybe that meant a downwind finish. "What the hell? We've come this far" say us. As we go through what could be a finish line I notice the folks on the RC boat seem fairly disinterested in us. Not a good sign.

Turns out the race was shortened to two legs so we got in a little extra practice in breeze which was fun. The part about flogging the crap out of a new main was a little less fun. Learning a little later that we were OCS was the exact polar opposite of fun.

Mark Taylor with Lisa Hayward crewing sailed a great regatta for the win. Here is a link to the full results; www.sarasotasailingsquadron.org/

The Sarasota District regatta has been held in November every year and will know be known as the Jeff Penfield Memorial Regatta. Jeff clearly left a mark on many of us and we really admire and miss him. Katharine Penfield was in attendance and closed out the awards presentation with a story about Jeff's desire to create a Leadership Award. It turns out he worked with his family in the last few weeks and/or months of his life to come up with the award criteria. He wanted it to be "For the recognition of respected leaders and active role models for new sailors in the Flying Scot Florida District. Suggested criteria; -Exhibit qualities of leadership in the Flying Scot class. -Promote fleet growth in the Florida District. -Act as a positive role model. -Sail actively in the Florida District." There is a perpetual trophy along with a keeper for the recipients, and the recipient is charged with selecting the next winner. Katherine continued that Jeff had selected the first recipient and when she announced it was Kim and I, we were shocked. I was pretty well speechless and the huge lump in my throat didn't help. Neither did looking at Kim, who was about to lose it.

The throat lump is back. We are as honored as we can be and want to thank the wonderful Penfield family.