January 2011

Happy New Year to all of you.  I hope that 2011 has gotten off to a great start, that you are keeping any resolutions you have made, and giving yourself a break if you are neither keeping nor making any! 

RACE COMMITTEE MEETING

There will be a meeting of the Race Committee on January 27, 2011 at 7PM in the Model Room at the EYC.  The agenda will include the structure of the committee for 2011;  staffing the Tuesday Laser series and the Wednesday V15 racing; the PRO seminar in April; and the RC training day in the Spring.  We also have a number of tasks that must be accomplished before the start of the season including a full equipment inventory, office reorganization and uniform/RC gear orders.  If you are interested in serving on a subcommittee, please let me know before this meeting. Thank you. 

SUMMER 2011 SCHEDULE 

The Marblehead Racing Association has made some key decisions over the past few months, and will be informing members this week that we have dropped the Brimbles Line from our schedule.  As a result, the Town Class will move to the Tinkers Line, and the J24s will move to the Midway line.  We will work with short and long courses so that all classes will have satisfying racing with little interference from faster or slower fleets.  

The first MRA racing will take place on Memorial Day weekend, but this year racing will be on Saturday, May 28 and Sunday, May 29, rather than the Sunday/Monday racing schedule we have had over the past few years.  We are hoping for greater participation from both a racing and race management perspective.

In PHRF news, the race committee chairs of the Boston, Corinthian and Eastern Yacht Clubs have petitioned MassBay Sailing and been granted  a new qualifying event to replace underperforming races that we each host.  The combined event, tentatively called the Chowder Cup(s) Challenge will take place on October 9, and in 2011 will be hosted by the Eastern Yacht Club.  In subsequent years, the event will rotate around the harbor.  This will replace the EYC's Chandler Hovey race, the CYC's Summer Ocean Race, and the BYC's Fall Regatta, and the host club will award their trophies.  That means the 2011 inaugural event will be raced for the EYC's Chandler Hovey trophies.

 I look forward to seeing you all on January 27th at 7PM.

March 2011

Good afternoon all, as I joyfully watch the snow continue to melt... 

Thank you so much to everyone who attended the RC meeting last night.  I feel like we got a lot accomplished, and I am very grateful to everyone who took on the many assignments available.  

To recap: 

• The season schedule is coming together, and should be finalized at the MRA meeting this month.  I will share together with a link to the volunteer sign-up page on the Web site when complete;
  

• We have established a working group, headed by Alan McKinnon, to review RC assets (specifically boats) with the goal of presenting a recommendation to the membership;
  

• Geoffrey Lubbock and a team has taken on the task of completing an inventory of the barn;
  
• Debbie Noble has volunteered to be a liaison to the Sailing Committee, to represent RC needs and perspective;
  
• Susie Schneider has volunteered to lead our Special Events/Regatta efforts which this year will inclue the IOD Worlds in June, J105 NAs in August, Etchells NAs in September, the newly-minted Chowder Cup on September 9 and the Halloween Team Race in late October;
  
• We are still looking for communications/scheduling and equipment managers.  Please call or email me if you are interested. 

I encourage anyone interested in participating to sign up at US Sailing for the Race Management Seminar on April 2 at the EYC.  RC will take care of the costs; just let me know after you havecompleted the registration here.

 
I will be scheduling a Spring Work Day in mid May, and we will need folks both outside and inside, as the Race Committee office has undergone a makeover (Thank you Ernie!!) and will need to be put back together.

We will also be hosting a hands-on race management training session as soon as a boat or two is in the water, early May hopefully.  Please let me know if you would like to contribute to this effort.

Thanks again to everyone for their continued support and hard work.