GBCA Discussion Forum

Now if they could just do something about that steep hill.

Just joking.

How does one decide a tie breaker in this?

I got to do my very first Wurstfest on a boat --- Vic Forsyth's good old Aftershock. In my former life I managed to play a million polkas at the Wursfest, eat several hundred sausages (OK maybe a few more), and of course drink my share of Beer, but I never even considered the regatta as part of the fun.

Except for the rain on Sunday and occassional light to very light winds, this was lake sailing at its best.  Smooth deep water and on Saturday, beautiful clear skies. Excellent crew work with a lot of gentle ribbing.

There were a number of GBCA'ers there and several good friends and crew.  I was really impressed with the race set up.  They had three lines with one offset marks. They ran W/L and triangles for a variety of big and small boats.  OD lines included Vipers, Cat 22's, J22's, and J24's.  The regatta also included PHRF spinn and non-spin.


Those of you with the capability to go just might consider joining the fun in the future.

If you look at the 2009 schedule on this website you can get pretty close to the 2010 version.  There will be some differences and some new cool races but outside of that we will likely race pretty much like we did this year.

GBCA is the best value on the bay.

One of the things to worry about is how we get "foreign" boats commissioned and de-commissioned.  Last time I checked this was more expensive then Key West.  If we pool resources we should be able to get a really good deal from the local establishment.  We would want this to be on the order of a few hundred bucks per boat --- even if they are 34 feet or longer.

I like that.  TOOD!

There are two problems with J105's sailing up by HYC.  One is water depth and the other is short courses with little boats on the line.

Water depth is certainly the bigger issue.  Ask Malcolm Bremer about the time this year he was in striking distance and then planted Babe's keel in the mud.  He actually had to hoist the chute on the upwind leg to get off.  As far as I know the only 105 still up at HYC is J-Teez.  Tichenor has not raced his boat in quite a while.  The only time it gets out is when someone else "charters" it for one of our class races.  I think all of us prefer to run in deeper water.

As to the smaller boats:  I don't remember the venue but we did run with the smaller boats on what is normally called the OD line.  The course lengths were on the order of .5 - .75 miles.  Regardless of how we started we usually managed to round the marks with the 22's or the Ensigns and with our big sails almost always screwed them in some form or fashion.  I have been yelled at quite loudly for passing to windward of someone and pretty much stalling them in their tracks. 

I am quite sure that most of the 105 owners prefer to be on the bigger boat line.  Having said that I think building our own TEXAS NOOD is a sparking idea.  Proceed with all do haste.

I would love to push for the 2011 J105 North Americans.  We have been offered this before and I am willing to put a lot of effort into it.  Just need to find a date when we think the wind Dogs (spell it backwards) will be favorable.

We might be able to get away with a bunch of Texas Championships --- Catalina 22, J80, J22, J105, J109, Viper, Level PHRF ---.  of various types and even have some smaller style stuff on Clear Lake at the same time.  Let's think big here.

I've always thought that Texas Race Week should be a big time event.  Maybe partially in the bay and then the rest in the Gulf.  We do have almost blue water out there.  Get the conservatives to allow gambling and away we go.

Hmm.  Thinking a bit more, why don't we organize our own local OD regatta.  Set up a range of both PHRF and OD classes, encourage people to enter and see what we get.  If we could possible pool the resources of HYC, LYC, and GBCA and maybe even the local OD classes, we should be able to put together something at least as good as the NOOD.

Less cost yes, but less recognition as well.  I took a quick look at the "other" NOODs.  Almost all had 100+ boats with some pretty exotic types that we never seem to see here.

I organized a J105 Texas championship in conjunction with the NOOD.  Had commitments from at least a couple outside the area boats but they never showed up.   Costs too much to transport the boats and most owners seemed to think that the venue was not worth the effort.  No blue water, and no big time competition.  Was really disappointed.

If things don't look up we will probably be limited to small local OD classes, PHRF, and ORC in the HMR.

What a fabulous weekend.  Beautiful fall weather, crystal clear (OK some haze) skies, and some great races put on by the GBCA PROS and CONS.  Thanks guys for the great job, the great awards (especially the fun stuff put on by that crazy Bez woman), and the great parties.  Brad's hat was priceless!

Would like to thank all the participants in PHRF B for their class act during the racing.  While we missed the OD racing we are so used to the crew of Stinger really enjoyed racing with such a classy bunch.  We found that three or four boats finishing within seconds, regardless of rating, is just as exciting as the same thing in OD.

Go GBCA

Looks like the ORC number to me.  Stinger's is 649.7.  Can I run with that?  Should not be too big of a difference from my normal 78.

Actually I do know about Zippy.  Bates is running an 80.