2008 Fleet News

Weighing & Tuning your Snipe- Join this Fleet Event

Date: April 5, 2008
Time: 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Place: At the Club

Dear Fleet 330 Members,

We want to start the sailing season off so everyone is on an even keel (no pun intended). This year we are making the tedious task of weighing boats a fun and rewarding Fleet Event. Fleet experts will be standing by to help you weigh and tune your rig so you can be ready for the first fleet races on Sunday April 6. We will be providing lunch and beverages so we can sit around and discuss ways to make our boats more competitive. Who knows, maybe this is the year John Muhlhausen tows a water skier.

Why Go To Regattas When Only One Person Wins?

(and it probably won't be you)

by Peggy Davis

There seem to be a million excuses not to travel, but I believe there are also many valid reasons to make the effort.

Forget the kid's soccer match, the grass over a foot high, the weekend activities you really should go to, the high price of gas, the trouble it is to take down your mast and pack up, etc, etc, etc. Your Snipe sailing experiences will be much more meaningful if you'll attend several regattas.

Attending out of town regattas strengthens your home fleet.

You get to talk to sailors from other areas and find out how they make their fleet successful. Do they have seminars? Are they during the winter or after or before races? Do they get together after races to share frustrations and insights from that day's races? (If not, all but one person drives home disgusted. It's amazing how much easier it is to lose to a close friend, and how much closer friends you become if you share that "I really didn't see the shift coming - I was just in the right place," or even better when he tells you what made him anticipate it.) Do other fleets have regular fleet dinner meetings that are fun? How do they keep the cost down? (We specialize in bring-a-meat-to-grill-and-a-dish-to share.)

Attending out of town regattas strengthens your sailing skills.

You see the newest go-fasts and learn how and why to use them. You share what sailing strategies other sailors use. You experience sailing conditions often quite different from those on your own lake.

And more importantly, regattas are fun!!!!

In the case of our Atlanta fleet, the Halloween Regatta provides a way for those who are not active sailors to know that they are important fleet members. We can not control the weather. (It's been below freezing and in the 80's.) We can not control how much water the Corps of Engineers leaves us. (There is never as much lake as we sail on the rest of the year, but some years are definitely better than others. One year when we had over 100 Snipes, the joke was that if you lined them up bow to stern you could walk across the lake on them. Besides isn't having an island to go around more challenging?)

But we can control the environment on land. Every fleet member helps plan and execute every aspect of land activities. Our goal is to provide the best regatta experience in the country.

Do you have children? Friday night there is a Trick or Treat hike where cabin owners even decorate and put on costumes. There are children's games in the clubhouse and a costume contest. Of course on Friday night we also serve a free chili dinner for you and the kids. Saturday and Sunday we provide baby sitters during the races and a children's meal Saturday night.

For the sailors, spouses, and accompanying entourage, Saturday after the races, our fleet's non-sailors serve traditional hot buttered rum (with and without alcohol.) After dinner we have a band that makes us all remember how much fun dancing was when we were young-er. Besides the latest how-to-be-healthy-and-live-forever says dancing is the best exercise. Costumes have become a tradition, but they just appeared. Visitors started this tradition! There is no set time to wear yours, no length of time to keep it on, no necessity to reveal who you are (Are any of you old enough to remember the time before costumes were common when a grizzly bear rumbled silently for the whole evening without our being able to determine who it was?)

But most important is seeing friends. Even if sailors move from your local fleet, you can still see them several times a year, at nationals, at Halloween, and other big regattas. My family's life has certainly been enriched by having Snipe friends throughout the world. Somehow, sharing the energy, frustrations, and excitement of Snipe sailing creates a bond that will last a lifetime.