Allan: We have a place you can park your camper overnight about 25 minutes from the pond. How big is your camper, which night(s) do you want to stay. --Jim
The re-scheduled Footy Regatta in Needham, MA on Saturday, May 24 is drawing near, and the long-term weather prediction couldn’t be better. Weather dot com is predicting mostly sunny, 71 degrees, with 7 mph winds. To date we have 15 confirmed skippers, and we’re looking for more. If you haven’t done so already, there’s still time to sign-up. Here’s hoping we’ll see you there. For details contact Bill Hagerup or:
Jim Linville
Vice-Commodore MmMYC
781-925-0045
jimisu@comcast.net
Thanks to all who offered to let me park overnight with the camper. I’ve decided not to bring it. I could overnight at a wal-mart or a nearby resident’s house, but the Parks Department discouraged me from parking on-site the day of the event as well. Maybe when you move to the other pond I’ll have better luck. I’ll just drive my car down the morning of the event. I shouldn’t grouse about the drive, I still drive an hour less than Bill does to get there!
But Bill gets to drive his classic Cobra!
He gets to sail his Cobra too… without doubt Bill is a classy guy 
Bill’s pair of Cobras are pretty damned cool, but I’m not slouching too badly in my GT mustang…My Razor-II however, I’ll give the nod to the master there…
Bill, If you read this, give me a call at work the next day or two. I’ve been trying to e-mail you, but your hotmail account keeps bouncing back my mail.
Current forecast.
Saturday…Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. North winds 10 to 20 mph.
The NWS hourly forecast graph makes it look more like 15 mph all day.
Okay, I’ll acknowledge it…it never blows from that direction!
It figures we get in the rare onshore breeze, oh well.
It’s a tense time for any organiser. I went through all this last week and it’s nice when it finally comes together 
All the best to you guys…
Graham
As long as there’s wind, we can deal with the direction.
I agree with you there Allan… I hope there isn’t too too much though… I scrapped all my B rigs!
Latest weather says high 60s NW winds @ 11 mph, and that’s at the airport (which is on the bay). I’ll bet we’ll be sailing with A-Rigs (but I’m bringing my B-Rig… just in case).
If you want to check it yourself the zip code is 02492.
–Jim Linville
Looks like 10mph at noon, and increasing to 15mph by 6pm. Very nice forecast for footies.
Check the wind maps here. I usually find that they’re fairly accurate once you get within a 24-hour window to the event you’re planning.
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Wind/WINDcast.aspx?location=USVT0205
Allan
I just made a Footy-Legal storm rig last night. As I described it to Bill Hagerup on the phone just a while ago, it’s “the most important rig I’ll never use”.
Normally, the winds in Needham are much lower than those predicted for the Boston area. It wouldn’t surprise me if we had a drifter. Anyway, it’s almost 9 PM, and I’m going to bed so I can get up early and get to the Reservoir early enough to get a front row parking space. See you all in the morning!
–Jim Linville
Just a side light on this whole ‘B-rig’ problem---- Has anyone tried the idea of “B-rigs” with a range of sail areas equal to the “A-rigs” they have used successfully? The 12" mast height [u]might[u] cure the submarining problem without sacrificing speed. I think I’ll try it using McRigs, which are cheap to make and modify.
Just a thought, late at night…
Rod
Jim,
Thanks to you and to the Minuteman Club for a truely enjoyable regatta! Needham lived up to its reputation for shifty, gusty, and generally unpredictable winds that really kept us on our toes. Footy sailing in a big fleet is a blast anyway, but those gusts really made things exciting.
Your rule that ANY two rigs could be used made it possible to do some valuable sail experimenting (I learned that it seems better to be fast and only partly in control rather than slow and in control - of course Colin proved to be both!). It might well be looked at as a model for a national sail rule.
I was very much impressed at the increase in quality and quantity of the Footy fleet, in the north east, in just the span of a year.
Once again “Thanks”. You really did a great job.
Scott
I’ll second that Scott – Jim you organized a great regatta, really in the spirit of footydom! Bugger me for cracking my sail servo after 2 races though… There were some good lessons learned, and a new footy design concept is taking shape in the dark recesses of the SMM skunkworks.
Thanks for a great event, what time I was sailing was fantastic, and the support you all gave me through my gear failure was truly in the spirit of sportsmanship. Good on ya mates!
On a different note; my brother (Mr. Photographer) took about 100 pictures of the racing, I’ll try to get them up here in the next couple of days after I’ve had a chance to upload them to my machine.
Here are the official results… Computers never lie.
Where and when will the Regionals be? Nationals?
–Jim Linville
Sorry, guys, I thought I was uploading an Excel file that gave all of the results. Guess I didn’t know what I was doing. Sorry.
Jim, thank you again for running a really first class event. It was fun, and very intense, since you can’t take your eye off your boat for a second, especially in the variable and gusty conditions that we had. Allowing a second rig of any size was a good idea, although I was chicken to try anything other than the 180 sq inches that I started with.
It was surprising how well these boats sailed in the gusts when heeled over to almost 90 degrees. Most of them kept going straight, with no leeway, probably because the decks on these wide boats were digging in and acting like super-keels.