Footy Regatta 8/16/25 and Soling/DF95 Regatta 8/17/25

This was one of the better weekends for sailing in my humble opinion; Mild temperatures, no rain, no weeds, and our usual unpredictable/fluky winds.

Saturday’s Footy Regatta was contested by eight skippers sailing Pool Sharks, Rangers, Cobra’s and 3D printed Footy’s.  While these boats are fun, they are not easy to sail and require a lot of focus on the part of the skipper.  Wind shifts and gusts can quickly change the sailing dynamics of any boat, and each boat design has a little different reaction to the changing conditions.  Because they are small, they are built very light, but they carry a lot of sail.  As a result, these boats seem to suffer a little more attrition than other classes.  When sailing was over, we had lost four boats to attrition.

Please see the Saturday scoresheet for results.  My thanks to John Lamport who helped keep score when his boat gave up the ghost.

Sunday’s Soling/DF95 Regatta had a little better wind conditions than Saturday and eight skippers showed up to race.  As luck would have it, Herb Dreher, who is always well prepared, showed up with his Soling, ready to sail.  But between home and the pond his rudder servo stopped working…actually he could get right rudder but not left rudder.  Hmmmm!   He ended up sailing DF95 412.  

Then Paul Mercer’s (who is also always well prepared) rudder decided that it could no longer find and return to center.  The servo would just continue moving, with no transmitter input, until it found its own happy place to stop.   There was not another spare boat Paul to sail, so the race was contested with just six skippers.  

Please see the Sunday scoresheet for results.  My thanks to Paul Mercer who helped me call the line and keep score.

Thanks to everybody who came to the pond to enjoy the weekend with us. 

Cliff Martin,

Commodore