News Midwest Regional II @ Devils Lake

[Gail]

Sorry no scores. A couple adjustments needed to be made after the scorer left. Today we "enjoyed" the affects of Pacific Tropical rainstorm Lowell. Torrential rain from sailor arrival until 2:00 pm. The first race started about 2:35 after a postponement. Light air out of the south today, 0-6. It was shifty and puffy with holes, everyone's favorite conditions (yeah, right). An incredibly competitive fleet, the boats were close on each other and positions changed constantly. After 3 races today, Dan Norton and Derrick Fries are tied. Josh Kerst is in 3rd. We expect to have 2-3 more races on Sunday, but that will be determined by how quickly the remnants of Hurricane Ike arrive. There's also a cold front draped across south central Michigan. It is incredibly wet. Last weekend's deluge from the remnants of Hurricane Gustav soaked the area with 4-6 inches of rain and this had not dried up yet. It is incredibly humid and quite warm for this time in September.

It is supposed to rain off and on through Sunday until the tropical rain comes and then it is supposed to pour.

We have 17 Sunfish. Fleets represented include Grand Lake State Mary's, Devils Lake, Greater Detroit, Pymatuning, Lake Bluff, Wolf Lake, Hueston Woods. The Sunfish regatta is being held in conjunction with the Bruce Goldsmith memorial regatta. There are over 25 Lightnings racing, too.

 

[Gail]

Enough with the Tropical Systems already!!!

Promises of more rain and high winds were poorly timed. The fleets went out for a 10:00 start expecting torrential rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ike (the radar images and path were ominous) and winds of 20-30. The Lightning start was in winds S 1 which quickly died. The boats still were bobbing on the starting line 5 minutes later when the Sunfish (surprisingly) were started. One race sailed today in winds S 0-3. (Three might be generous.) Derrick Fries won the race and the regatta. Dan Norton was 2nd, Josh Kerst 3rd, Fritz Hanselman 4th, Rob Stephenson 5th, and race 3 leader until the last leg, Tom Katterheinrich, 6th. 7-10 were Mike Scriver, Mike Stratton, Gretchen Seymour and Neil Harrell.

Devils Lake Yacht Club did a great job with the regatta, the 1st Bruce Goldsmith Memorial, in spite of the weather. Great live music Saturday night. There were a number of sailors for whom club members provided housing. We raced in no rain and little wind. Everyone was packed up before the deluge arrived on Sunday. There were trophies to 10th! There was a nice sharing of memories of Goldsmith at the awards. There was a great turnout of Lightnings and the Sunfish fleet was good. Were it not for the driving conditions Saturday morning and the weather forecast, we're confident both fleets would have been much larger.