It’s hard to think of a better night for launching a boat than last night, especially in Newport in May. Just three of us made quick work of getting Crack of Noon in the water (that's Dave Reed on the right delivering the boat to its slip at Newport YC). By 8 p.m. we were comfortably seated at the Mudville Pub toasting the impending start of the another season of J/24 sailing. Psyched would be an extreme understatement.
It’s strange that the more sailing I do and the more traveling I do, the more I look forward to Thursday nights in Newport. Though I always seem to remember the water being closer to 70 than 50.
Last fall at the annual awards banquet, I spoke with the incoming fleet captains, Will Welles and Brian Smith, about improving the intra-fleet communications. We thought a weekly blog would be great. So in this space each Friday morning, I’ll be sharing a little recap of the previous night. We hope to have the results up as well, and we’ll also do some impromptu interviews with a strong performer from each week to help share a bit of the collective knowledge of the fleet.
Anyone with a gmail.com account will be able to add comments (the account is free and easy to sign up for, and so far, no junk mail!) and if you get sick of hearing about the travails and triumphs of the Crack of Noon crew, feel free to volunteer to sit in for a week and tell everyone how it went down on your boat. You can reach me at stuart (dot) streuli (at) sailingworld (dot) com. Or just email any of the fleet officers, they can also post stories to the blog.
As nice as the weather was last night, it’s still May, and it looks like we’re in for something a little more typical for tomorrow night’s opening race. The forecast from iWindsurf.com says we can expect strong SW breezes during the day with a possible fade into the evening. Showers are possible as a front moves through.
1 comment:
The beauty of this May launching is it's the ONLY time this boat will be hovering overhead in a crane. The mighty Crack of Noon is one of the fleet's few remaining wet-sailed boats, which means weekly bottom scrubs, but more time for post-racing harbor cruises to throw back the suds while the hoist line stacks up.
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