Racers and Non-Racers
Nancy and I wanted to thank all the racers and non-racers who came to the Winter Race Meeting last week. There was an excellent turnout, the pizza was great, and the company even better. Many provided input to the main agenda items to include approval of the racing schedule for 2022, determination of work credit values for the racing program, approval of Dedicated Race Committee proposal, and the major racing program work projects for this year. The proposals were all modified and improved with your feedback and suggestions.
The schedule was approved, and two additional regattas were created. The first is a weekend focused on providing a racing experience for beginning or new racers. It would be comprised of a day of experienced skippers using their own boats hosting beginners to race with them to learn the ropes and a second day to have new racers skipper their own boats with experienced crew members from the club helping them learn to race on their own. Our main goal is to attract new racers into our racing program. The second planned regatta would be a single-handed regatta in a traditional fleet race format. These dates for these new regattas along with the traditional ECSC regattas will be posted soon on the ECSC web page.
A consensus about work-credit values was determined for racing volunteers for major regattas and Wednesday night races. This will be incorporated into the racing work-credit process of the racing program going forward.
The discussion of the Dedicated Race Committee program received the most discussion. Many new ideas were provided. The most central concept of having dedicated trained PROs (Primary Racing Officers) present for each Wednesday Night and Major Regatta was validated by all. The issue of how to provide the Assistant PROs to support the dedicated PROs was a more difficult problem to solve. There were several very good alternatives provided in the discussion. Nancy and I will continue to work on a final solution to this later issue and intend to launch this program with the start of the racing season this year. More to follow.
Lastly, we updated the attendees of the purchase of a galvanized scissor-pontoon trailer to enable removal and storage of the RC pontoon and the Aircraft Carrier pontoon each year. Major racing projects this year will include the repair and upgrade of the Aircraft-Carrier pontoon, an addition of an anchor-winch device to the RC pontoon (to facilitate anchor movement and pontoon alignment in the pre-start sequence), and an addition of new buoy between buoys 1 and 6 to facilitate additional racing course options.
Hope to see our usual racers and many new racers enjoy the fun of racing at ECSC this summer. See you on the water.
John Kohne
Nancy Goff