Sheboygan Footy Fest, May 18th 2008

After last year’s great day we just had to do it again…!

Sunday May 18th is the date and Wood Lake, Kohler (near Sheboygan) is the place. Full details can be downloaded from our club page at http://www.scalesailing.com/sabm.htm

For photos of the 2007 event and the venue take a look here…
http://s107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/ScaleSail/Sheboygan%20Footy%20Regatta%20May%2007/

The Sheboygan Area Boat Modelers and ScaleSailing look forward to welcoming you to our friendly race again this year.

Please let me know your entry information (see notice) as early as possible so that I can organise frequencies. Thank you.

Graham

The entry list has started, which means that frequencies are being allocated… get your’s in :slight_smile:

Graham

Graham, your signature sounds like a MI5 code :smiley: … is it a post code ? :scared:

Not a post code… but if you work out what it is and you have an anarchic streak like me then you may well enjoy it.

We currently have 10 pretty solid entries for the Sheboygan Footy Fest '08 in May… a healthy fleet but there is room for more. The ice is melting and temps. are rising slowly. Last year we had 80F yesterday, a record, but here… anything can happen :slight_smile:

We are expecting to be back on the lake next week after the long freeze. Lots of testing and fun to be done… if you are close enough you are invited anytime of course just give me a call.

Graham and the SAMYC guys

Should be an interesting fleet at Sheboygan, so far it contains…

four Kittiwakes
one V12
one Razor
one Harpy
one Pond Sprite
one 507
one Micron2
one Siren

Interestingly we have two entries on 2.4GHz which is great to see. It means that life is easier for avoiding frequency clashes and it also means that people are taking footys seriously enough to spent that sort of money!

Graham

Not long now and we are looking at a healthy 12 boat fleet. Please get any last minute entries registered because we are close to our single fleet limit and would prefer not to run in heats.

For regular weather updates go to the SAMYC web page at http://www.scalesailing.com/samyc.htm and follow the ‘WeatherUnderground’ link for more details.

Looking forward to seeing you there…

Graham

Interesting to note that 5 of the 13 entries are now on 2.4GHz. I have my DX6i set coming too. This suggests that the footy is the first boat for more and more people, at the very least it means a footy is worth buying an extra receiver for.

Also of interest and I think it shows the growing strength of commitment to our class, we have 5 out of state entries so far, with a possible 6th. All we need now is a good day and a nice breeze.

Graham

I’ve been trying to juggle some things, find some $, get permission from the boss of the house, etc. Finally got it together and will be attending the regatta. I don’t get to Milwaukee until about 6:00pm Saturday, but I’ll be at Graham’s house ASAP after arrival. Save me a beer! :zbeer:

P.s. I’ll be working in Madison from Sept. 22-26. Any chance of organizing a regatta for the weekend before or after??

Bill H

Just looked at Weather Underground fivecast, if to be believed next sunday looks like small A or even B rig, but then forecasts are only 50% correct so who knows.

Great news Bill, we’ll try and make sure you have a great weekend. Chilled beer, and some basement temp. English beer awaits. I hope you have much better luck with your boat travelling than recently too. My workshop is on hand just in case!

The entry is now all but full so if anyone else wants to attend please email or PM me first to enquire about a place. I would prefer no ‘on the day’ entries.

Wunderground is notoriously pessimistic Paul… but you never can tell with bees, or weather.

Graham

OK - where are the photos?

Anxious, Allan?

I should leave it to Graham to report (and post pics) but I’d like to say thanks to him and (especially) Jan for being great hosts and organizing a fun event.

There was some good, close racing, too. Winner was Tony Johnson sailing a V12 with a custom rig. Graham was second with Pond Sprite. I was third with one of my Cobra variants. Not sure how Graham squeaked past me, but he was the one who insisted we keep racing after 12 were completed…Tony, on the other hand, dominated with many 1st place finishes.

Great fun, Shebogan is a pretty town with very nice people, and I will do my best to return next year.

Bill H

It’s been a full 4 days of organisation for us here Allan so I just got back to the PC for the first time. I have a good crop of photos to go through, edit etc. I will get to that on Tuesday and put a report together. If anyone else wants to post photos and give their impressions please go ahead and add them here.

In my defense Bill… :slight_smile: we actually finished early according to the NOR time so no dodgy dealing there lol.

A massive thank you to everyone for coming to the
Sheboygan Footy Fest '08 and making it a great weekend. We had a fleet of 13 and most of the skippers at our home the night before. Hard work and great fun… more later.

Graham

well done to all,looking forward to the pics.
cheers
Brett

Thanks Brett… you would have had a great time with us and I know I can say that we would have loved to have had you here.

To make a start lets have some ‘people photos’ then we’ll get into the racing shots. I want to thank Jan for all of the photos I have, she snapped them between her duties on the start line and counting us back over the finish line.

The skippers… 13 skippers arrived, only 1 couldn’t make it from the pre-entry list.

The Prizegiving… presented by Jan McAllister
1st, Tony Johnson
2nd, Graham McAllister
3rd, Bill Hagerup

One of the early starts… (photos 1-3)
Men at work under a threatenning sky… (photo 4)

(photo 1) R to L; Micron 2 [17] sailed by Scott Heling (loaned boat from Bill Korsgard)… Razor [6] David Nelson… Razor [58] Joe Steele, I believe this is an ex SVEN boat.

(photo 2) How many footys can you get in one Optimist’s shadow?

(photo 3) L to R; Kittiwake, 507, Kittiwake, 507

(photo 4) L to R; Cobra [427] Bill Hagerup, V-12 [477] Tony Johnson, Pond Sprite [10] Graham McAllister, Siren [65] sailed by Don Reimer (loaned from G.McAllister), Kittiwake [74] Toby Vetting.

More photos

Here is a regatta report as I saw it, but I was busy racing so please chip in with your own perspectives.

Saturday night was…:zbeer: well you had to be there :stuck_out_tongue:
Sunday morning and I arrived at Wood Lake at 8.30 to set up. A couple of keen guys were already watching the wind which was blowing pretty hard NNE around the east side of our tree covered island. I set up registration and measuring inside the Woodlake Mall foyer and started working through the process as skippers and boats arrived. Our man Mark Klarkowski arrived with the bouy set and his Vac-U-Tug so we proceeded to set the course. With the number of guys at the pond side watching this turned out to be an event in itself. There is something satisfying about a model tug boat actually working, no puttering past idly looking pretty for this tug, he’s a hard working course laying tug.

Racing started after a skippers meeting and an extra ten minutes water time. By this time the wind was still strong but well below what might be considered ‘Footy B rig’ conditions. The forecast was for 13mph dropping to 11mph later. This proved to be much more than the reality of the day but did make those of us with extra rigs go for a mid sized ‘A’.

The morning was dominated by Tony Johnson with his V-12 (modified sloop rig) taking five straight wins. Don Reimer, Bill Hagerup and myself were swapping second, third and fourth places up until lunch. Throughout the morning the wind was quite strong but flukey around the island. The direction held so we had a pretty true beat from the start line to the windward mark. A run turned to a broad reach as we sailed to leeward of the island followed by a shorter run down to the leeward bouy. Finally a short but tricky beat needing at least one tack to the finish line.

Lunch was over a 45 minute break at Quizno’s subs which I think satisfied the hungry fleet. It was a good chance to sit down and discuss tactics too. Over lunch the wind dropped to zero for a while.

When we re-started the wind was very light from the same direction. Bigger rig conditions without a doubt but we were sailing this regatta to the Footy rules so a couple of requests to allow rig changes had to be denied. Still Tony showed his prowess at finding puffs which the rest of us missed and managed another win and a couple of second places in the light air. Skippers were now walking the wings of the course with extra determination, it was time to take the fight back to Tony! During this quiet wind spell we had some light rain showers too which wasn’t unpleasant and even looked rather attractive splashing on the calm lake. We sailed through the showers with I suspect varying degrees of pleasure.

After the rain the wind picked up again but swung round to the west. A brief discussion ensued and we decided that we would leave the course as it was. This meant a start on a very broad reach or occasional run but the second leg was now a long beat with an interesting lift around the island. The last three or four races were run like this. We could have completely reversed the course direction but that would have given us a very short beat to a starboard rounding which could have been troublesome. By now we had 15 races in the book and although we were still 15 minutes short of the NOR last race time we all agreed to call it a regatta.

We held the prize giving in the mall foyer with Jan presenting the top three trophies. Then all too soon it was time for those last conversations and goodbyes before a lot of weary skippers made their way home.

My particular thanks must go to my wife Jan for her hard work on Saturday in preperation for the brat fry we held Saturday evening. Also to Don and his wife Nancy who provided the pot of home made beans and added to the beverage supply as did Paul Taylor and Toby. On Sunday Jan, Jim Slapikes and Jim Vetting ran the races and kept the score tirelessly. Thanks to Mark Klarkowski for providing the bouys and lauching tug etc. Also for seeing that the course was set and taken out again. My thanks also to ‘The Shops at Woodlake’ for allowing us the use of their excellent facitities. Paula Williams who is my contact at the mall takes great interest in our sailing and is a pleasure to work with, thank you Paula. Finally our little club would like to thank everyone who attended. Making long journeys in the current economic climate is no easy decision and without you all the day would have been just another club sail. We had skippers from Florida, New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, all for the sake of a footy!

I am putting a full score sheet together which I am sure will make interesting reading.

Graham McAllister