Welcome to September on Mission Bay! We were greeted this morning with light drizzle and flukey onshore breezes. The Soling 50 fleet continues a strong showing of yachts. Considering the holiday weekend we did great with 10 skippers! The ODOM class seems to be holding steady at around a half dozen boats.. It was especially challenging for the Soling 50 fleet, as wind was lighter in the first three heats and there were obvious moments of ghosting with tell-tales sticking to the wet mylar. The ODOM fleet was second on the pond and managed a little more pressure as the air warmed up and blue sky pushed the clouds inland. Nice sailing by all skippers today!
Special thanks to volunteer Keith Sternal for a full day of race direction. He was out on the water early setting the marks and managing a full day of medium courses! Six races for each fleet, then back in the skiff at days end retrieving all our pins! I think we owe Kieth a cold beer or two! Steve Ross was backing up the score cards with his pen. I bet he earned a beer as well!
Everyone got these scores really fast considering Pat Nevitt had a tough time with water on his wind screen. GO Pat!
We have a expert drone pilot in our group that spends many hours (battery packs) capturing Wing Foiling action on East Mission Bay. I am sure following our pond sailing action was a piece of cake for him. We are very lucky to have Steve Ross documenting some of our racing activities.. THANK YOU Steve! (Check out his YouTube channel at Steve Ross 1965)
Summer might be coming to an end but there is plenty of great wind in San Diego year round. Get your rigs down to the pond!
A HUGE starting line for twenty seven DF95’s was the image today. Likely a record number of yachts participating in a club points race! We welcome new member Jim Sears and returning local sailor Jack Kingston. Also, visiting skipper from Australia, Barry Donaher showed us some excellent pond work. We wish Kerim Baran Smooth Sailing onhis new home in the Bay Area!
Greg Williams, our Race Director managed the work load with ease and deserves special recognition for an excellent day of race management. Jason Brooks assisted with score keeping on an action packed finish line.. A Standing Ovation for our volunteers!
A fairly consistent onshore breeze held through most out the day with each class completing 6 medium courses. I’d call it an excellent day on Mission Bay Model Yacht Pond!
Pat Nevitt delivered the scores! THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DO!
The sea breeze was up early today. Bob Williams opened the shed and wheeled out our trusty skiff. Gil Jansky dropped the marks and set the standard course. Steve Ross collected the $3 toll. Tom Warren officiated the skippers meeting. Prior to sailing, Tom installed a GoPro surveillance camera on the starting mark. Hopefully we will see a number of honest mistakes! Racing commenced at noon with ODOM’s on the pond first, with Bob Williams calling medium courses. Seven ODOM’s and away they go – Check out the scores.
After a short break, Tom Warren managed the six heats in the Soling 50 fleet. Seven skippers and a good day on the water. Pat Nevitt was right at the finish line with his pencil, keeping there score cards legible for his evening scoring calculations. THANK YOU PAT!!!
We had at least 6 adults attempting to mount our industrial strength BB Grill on a mobile unit (dolly). One person was being instructed by 5 professional observers! Truly great entertainment and worth the price of admission!
We actually had a fun day of sailing with a nice mix of fleets on the water. DF95 were well represented. IOM’s, ODOM’s and Soling 50’s all made for some good tune up racing. The day culminated with Bob Williams cooking up some of those fantastic HOT DOGS! One heck a good day!
Our traveling grill adventurers are rumored to be more frequent so don’t miss your next opportunity to score a fun day of sailing and one of Bob’s famous hot dogs!
July 15 Club Points attracted a nice group of skippers eager to sample some beautiful Mission Bay summer weather. The sea breeze cooperated most of the day with fairly consistent wind in the 3-8mph range.
Chris Staiger manned our skiff and set marks to accommodate a light onshore breeze. He also served as our volunteer Race Director for our IOM fleet. During the skippers meeting crews agreed to sailing a gate, as apposed to our reaching leg, opening up more opportunities for our medium course. Good work Chris!
Mike Fruciano was our volunteer Race Director for the DF95 fleet, along with scoring assistant Ken Titilah. Thank you for your help.
Kerim Baran has been active with the San Diego Argonauts for many years as a spirited competitor In Soling 50, ODOM and DF95 fleets and has provided spectacular drone footage of many of our racing events. Kerim will be leaving the San Diego area for other adventures and will be missed on or pond. Smooth Sailing, Kerim!
July 15 IOM Points Races – Playlist
Thank you to all skippers and volunteers that participated today. Club members appreciate your support!
Mission Bay has come to life with summer activities.. beaches, barbecues and lots of boats and cars! Our pond was equally active with much of the same action, only in miniature scale! We even experienced a water skiing demonstration prior to our day of sailboat racing!
Dave Woodward drove from Yuma to volunteer as Race Director. He set the marks, called the line, and fetched everything at the end of the day! Dennis Rogers assisted with scoring the finishes. Great job guys!
Our pond was overcast most of the day with light and variable onshore breezes. Fleets experienced a mixed bag of long, medium and short courses as the winds fluctuated. A challenging day of sailing!
Pat Nevitt provided these beautiful score cards! We all appreciate your contribution!
Four Argonaut IOM Sailors traveled to Foster City June 10 & 11 for the 2023 IOM Regionals – Dennis Rogers, Jess Atkinson, Jason Brooks and Tom Warren. There were just 13 entries but a highly competitive field leaving Jason and I feeling at least this was a gaining confidence event. I was desperate for “B Rig” experience as I was told it can blow stink at the lake. I was also warned of Kelley fish and weed wrapping around our IOM appendages!
As it turned out, weed and jelly fish were the least of our concerns as Jason and I observed the rock stars show up on Saturday morning. These are the guys our parents warned us about.
George Pedrick decided to forego the competition and became PRO as Freddy could not attend. George moved us south of the Rec Center for more favorable course, and we all ran A Rigs the first day. But the winds did not cooperate early as George was able to get off several races before postponements and resetting the courses became the rule of the day. With a 180 wind shift, the first critical races required us to start from right to left and dyslexic vision hampered the rookies. Finding our speed was also difficult and we made major adjustments between the many races thus far. With another 180 windshift and wind building to upper limits of A Rig, Jason took the bait and was the only sailor to mount the B Rig. Unfortunately, he could not overcome the lulls. Saturday’s end results placed Dennis and Jess in the upper echelon with Gary Boel and Mark Gollison, and Jason and I scoring in the Top 20!
Sunday morning brought more challenges to George Pedrick as the City of Foster City booked two events…the Bay Area Dragon boat regatta took our Saturday race course away, and we had to push the course North of the Pagoda and into a short course configuration. And alas the wind gods came to play and pushed us all into B Rigs! “This ought to be interesting!” Lots of action! Be awake!
I quickly found I had boat speed up and down the course- Kantun K2 conditions.the boat from Croatia was flying! Planing, diving, and a hell of a lotta fun! I started moving up in the order, but also found close quarter port and starboards required situational awareness. Several times I sailed passed outside the finish line’s smaller balls, and had to circle back, costing me valuable positions. When George suggested we target completing 32 races total, I felt my last chances of improvement. Alas! I steal a second place, then a fourth, and finally I got the start of my dreams, and fought hard for another 2nd place…but dang! I nailed the final tack and WON my first race! I did a Fernando Tatis 3rd Base Shuffle and got Congrats from all! So that’s how it’s done!
We all had an excellent time, and as the results don’t lie, Gary Boel and Mark Gollison went One Two. The entire fleet gained a great deal of attention from the locals and the Dragon participants, who constantly banged their drums all day long.
I was very impressed that every IOM player is willing to help each other out, are extremely friendly and enjoy the spirit of competition. There were no protests! Penalties served without bantering. And the sailing skills outrageous!
George Pedrick announced that The 2024 US Nationals will likely be held in Foster City.
SIGN ME UP! And the Argonauts need to come up and play with the Best of the Best. They won’t bite! We will all benefit in enjoying top- level competition with classy people.
PS Gary Boel paid me off with a cookie! And Jess…thank you for encouraging Jason and I to compete. You are a true warrior!
Tom Warren IOM #48
The Crew
Hello IOM Sailors,
The regatta turned out pretty good. We had a bit of a crises as the City scheduled two water events on the same day. We both needed the same water and the Dragon Boats got there first and had bigger boats. So we set up a bit shorter course to leeward of them which worked out fine. The shorter course also meant we got in 17 more races Sunday for a total of 32 good races for the weekend. The day started out in A rig and switched to B just after lunch.
Special Thanks to Dick Hunter, Sandy Winton, Chris Sullivan, Gary Boell and Gene Harris for their contributions to making the event a success.
I need to confirm with Freddy, but I am confident we will be hosting the 2024 National’s on one of the first two weekends in June of next year. Pencil it in and start making plans to attend. Be sure to bring a friend or two.
Thank you to all that attended. I enjoyed the time we spent together, and I look forward to the next time we cross paths.
San Diego Argonauts welcomed new member, Len Bose, to our group. He will be sailing IOM and DF95. We hope to see him often!
This is starting to sound like a broken record! Our June overhead is still very grey!
Despite that rather chilly detail a good group of skippers turned out for DF95 and IOM Points races. Light winds ruled our pond and in fact became lighter as the afternoon progressed. Chris Staiger set the marks and Kim Robbins managed collections while Gil scrambled back home for his missing transmitter :{ RD Gil got the DF 95 fleet on a short clock a few minutes after noon, with a mixture of 4 medium, 1 long and 1 short courses to complete six heats. Nice sailing!
Sean O’Connor was our volunteer Race Director for the IOM fleet today. Thank you Sean!
Our IOM fleet was about 5 skippers short today, as they are competing in the Region 6 Regatta in Foster City. We missed them on the starting line and wish them good luck!
Volunteers make this all possible! Lend a hand when you can!
Thank You Volunteers!
Sean O’Connor, Patt Nevitt, Steve Ross, Kim Robbins, Chris Staiger and Keith Sternal
June is officially greeting Mission Bay Model Yacht Pond enthusiasts and it appears from the score cards there was some competitive sailing today. Thank You to all the skippers that participated and even more thanks to the team of volunteers that made this happen.
The Argonauts had a healthy turnout of IOM & DF95 skippers despite the prevalent overcast conditions. Winds were about as predicted but came up early with a surprising consistency. Ben Reeve-RD did a fantastic job managing the fleets and kept crews on their toes with a variety of courses. It was a good day on the water if you were lucky enough to avoid our floating green paddies!
Special thanks to everyone that pitched in today! I know Bob Williams was calling sail numbers. Pat Nevitt, that is only a day out of surgery, produced these beautiful score sheets.. We appreciate your dedication and hope too see you back on the water soon! If I missed anyone that helped-I’ll do a circle for you!
We are getting good participation with our club races and volunteers staff. That said we would like to reach out for more helping hands to share the load. Don’t be shy.. It’s actually more fun when you contribute to the activities..
A Special Report from todays Race Director:
Hey all – I little regatta report from todays’ event.
All went very well today and very improved sportsmanship from all competitors. We had 11 IOMs and 16 DF95s on the lines today. The biggest worry was slipping and falling. Three skippers took a fall on the slippery shore. We really need to organize another big RAKE FEST. I promise to bring the donuts (even though I can’t have any) if we want to set a day soon to do it.
We had fair to good wind and a number of different bullet owners today. Pat is working on the scoring and it will be out soon I am sure. We mixed up the courses a little to try and keep the skippers on their toes (and not their butts from slipping). I personally want to thank Steve for getting the shed ready, David helping with the boat setup, Gil for setting the marks, Bob and Steve with help scoring, Pat for scoring totals, and Chris and Steve for boat removal and clean up. With all of this help the day went super smooth and ended quickly.
Below are some photos from the little point and shoot camera I had at the pond last month. Cheers!Ben
