February
1, 2007
Many
changes have been made to the Racing Schedule for
2007. The major change is that we have added Thursday
night to the schedule and, working with the fleets we have
placed MC’s, C’s and E’s on that night.
The LGYC Board approved these changes at the December Board
meeting.
Before
we review the changes I want to discuss some of the reasons
we made these changes and the benefit we intend to derive.
Wednesday
and Friday nights have become very crowded at our club. With
as many as five fleets racing at one time, several of our
stated club goals have suffered.
First,
the racing is not a good as it can be. Five fleets make for
a very crowded race course and make it almost impossible for
managing or changing a race course if the wind becomes uncooperative.
Next,
development of new race committee people has been difficult,
especially new PRO’s. Most people want to race on race
nights and not help on Race Committee. While it may seem counter
intuitive, more race nights will expand the pool of available
race committee because there will now only be three fleets
racing on Wednesday’s, Thursday’s and Friday’s.
Lastly,
more members will have a better social experience after racing.
Our kitchen and dining facility has a maximum capacity on
race nights of about 100-110 people. On Wednesdays and Fridays
if you were not up to dinner in the first wave, your wait
time was unacceptable and many members simply left the club.
This is not good for the members or the club.
These
three issues were the main driving forces in this new schedule.
Specific participation within the fleets was the other main
driver for these changes.
Changes
by Fleet.
Class
A
The NCASA Nationals are on Lake Minnetonka the third weekend
in June, very early in the season. Because of that early start,
we have added two early weeks of racing, starting on Tuesday,
May 15th.
Class
E
The Wednesday and Friday racing was very poorly attended in
2006. This was discussed in great detail at the annual E Fleet
meeting. The conclusion was to move the B Series to Thursday
night and to eliminate the C Series. The reasoning was, by
consolidating the weeknight racing the participation will
increase.
Class
C
The C Series has been moved from Wednesday to Thursday evenings.
MC
The B Series moved to Wednesday evenings and the C Series
is moved to Thursday evenings.
M24
Due to very poor attendance on Saturday Morning B Series,
this series has been eliminated. Also, the A series Friday
evening series will sail on the main course. The start will
still be at 5:30 and two races per evening are scheduled.
Lasers
The weekday racing has been eliminated. Many of the junior
Laser sailors are involved with teaching at the GLSS and there
was no participation this year. The Lasers will concentrate
on Sunday evening racing. There will be no Senior/Junior differentiation
only Full rigs and Radials.
M17
Wednesday evenings will be a B Series. An A Series has been
added on Saturday mornings. There are back to back races scheduled
each Saturday morning.
Sonars
No Changes
X
No Changes
Opti
No changes, however, due to the USODA Nationals scheduled
for Minnetonka, racing has been cancelled for that week.
Much
thought and discussion has gone in to this new schedule. I
want to thank the E, C and MC fleet for there willingness
to help improve our club and I am looking forward to a great
2007 season.
See
you on the water. Click here for 2007
Racing Calendar
Scott Ripkey
Vice Commodore.
