Sheboygan Footy Fest 2009
May 17th. Wood Lake, Kohler, WI.
Our third annual Footy Fest is in the book and a good and enjoyable event it was. The weather was good with wall to wall sunshine and around the mid 50’s F with a light to moderate NW wind. The forecast was for W swinging to SW but that didn’t happen unfortunately because it would have given us a less flukey wind.
I was there bright and early about 8am to set up and we had our first arrivals after 8.30. Measuring and registration was an easy affair with no controversy to deal with, we don’t do controversy here anyway. I must thank Frank Thorley for the loan of his excellent perspex measuring box, it is so nice to see what is going on in there. We had a good mix of boats and ideas to look at this year with Frank’s new assymetric sterned boat ‘GoldFoot’ and the ‘JimBobs’ from the Tanglewood (FL) guys. It was nice to see a bunch of Kittiwakes come up with their owners from Chicago from the Fleet 4 Commanders club. Three very nicely built boats named ‘Huey’, ‘Louie’ and ‘Dewey’, made me smile. We were running a little late having had some technical difficulties with the bouy launching system so after a friendly skippers meeting we got underway.
The first race went to Graham McAllister with Frank Thorley second and Toby Vetting third. I was sailing my new ‘Dragon’ design with una rig for the first time competitively so this was an encouraging start. Then ‘Fast’ Frank (GoldFoot) got into gear and took the next 4 races with second and third being shared by Toby Vetting (Kittiwake), myself (Dragon) and John Gallenburger (JimBob). We took some longer breaks between the first couple of races so that we could take a look at the boats which had struggled in the first race and see if the experienced guys could breathe a little more speed into them. This is part of what this Footy Fest is meant to be so it was good to see that the slower boats did improve and were later finishing just a leg or so behind.
After a good lunch break at Quizno’s Subs just along the walkway we were back bang on schedule with a restart at 12.45pm. I took the first race again with ‘Dragon’ with Frank second and John third. Toby Vetting was fourth, Larry Tregear fifth, Larry Schleis sixth, Dick Chvojka seventh and Don Powell eighth. Then ‘Fast’ Frank did it again winning four in a row with Graham, John, Toby and Larry S. sharing second and third. The last race of the day was a very slow affair but fascinating non the less. Graham won this final race with John second and Frank third. During the last two races the wind had dropped very low and some floating weed which had been held against the bank by the wind started to encroach on the course. I came ashore and pulled weed and relaunched in those races as did others so it was becoming very tense as weed avoidance became a part of the tactic. As a result of the weed we called the eleventh race as the last, just one short of our target of twelve races.
So the day was about over and a few guys had already started on their way home so the group shot is missing a few. Jan and I conducted the prize giving in the foyer of our lovely venue at Woodlake. Jan McAllister made the three trophies this year as stained glass plaques which we hope the winners will enjoy owning. The final results were 1st Frank Thorley, 2nd Graham McAllister and 3rd John Gallenburger. The full race-by-race results should be posted somewhere closeby. We hope that everyone who came along felt that they were a winner in some degree, whether they picked up a few tips, made new friends or just had a good day out. It was particularly good to see a young man among the fleet at his first Footy regatta, Adam Zimmermann from the Chicago area. Well done Adam on your 8th place and we hope to see you here again, all it takes is practice and you will be beating us older guys as you have youth and good eyesight on your side!
I would like to thank again Paula Williams of ‘The Shops at Woodlake’ without whose help and encouragement we would not be able to have the use of this lovely venue. Mark Klarkowski who was dragged away screaming by work but provided our bouy set and tug boat launching system. Jan Mcallister for making the trophies and standing all day watching the starts and scoring the finishes. ScaleSailing for sponsoring the trophies and event which keeps this as a ‘free entry’ regatta. Don Reimer who rose literally from his sick bed to help us set up in the morning. Don took 4th place the last two years so would have been a tough guy to beat with his new boat had he been able. Frank Thorley for his Footy Box and encouraging other of his Tanglewood Club members to come along too. And last but not least everyone who came along and took part, first or last, a regatta needs you all.
We hope to see you all again next time,
Graham McAllister
Sheboygan Area MYC.
PS. I just added the full results as a .pdf but I don’t know if it will be readable here. If not I’ll have Charles post them at the Footy home site.
