2023 BFSC Spring Series
Review of 2023 Spring Race Series
July 24, 2023
The BFSC Spring Race Series has ended and looking forward to the Fall series starting in August. The Spring series proved to be pretty tough with lack of wind or storms, but luckily we were able to complete 5 races - Woohoo!
For the cruiser class, Pete Winham with Southern Cross won the 1st place accomplishing finishing #1 in ever raced attended...Wow! In second place, finished Tom Swendiman with Windwalker and in third place, finished David Bloom with Full Deck.
For the racer fleet, Bruce Barton with Magic Fly won 1st place followed by Dan Drechsel with Hope in 2nd place, and Jeff Elam with Shameless in 3rd place.
I want to make an honorary mentioned to Tim Wilson who just started to race and finished #1 in his first race.
Lets look forward to more wind and good weather for an exciting Fall Series.
Happy Sailing!
Chico
July 18, 2023
The last race of the Spring Series was Saturday, the 15th and it was much like most of the Spring Series – a test of one’s light air racing skills. To finish the races often required patience and perseverance along with a healthy amount of sail trim skill and experience to know where the best wind was. Admittedly, it was frustrating at times, but using short courses and shortened finishes we were able to put together a fun series without the help of the wind gods. In fact, in this last race the wind gods were particularly cruel. As soon as the short race course was shortened even more, and a few boats managed to cross the finish line, the winds piped up to 15 knots and a decent sail could be had heading back to one’s dock.
As a reminder, the third Moonlight race is on July 29th and the Fall Series has its first race on August 5th. Join us for some fun times on the water, regardless of the wind. If you don’t have a boat, but want to learn and enjoy the sport, come to the skipper’s meeting and we’ll do everything we can to get you on a boat. It’s a great way to learn what racing is about and to experience the fun and comradeship it creates.
Fred
June 18, 2023
The Barefoot Spring Series race 5 took place on the 17th and was a big success. We had a perfectly run flat start with Dan providing professional race management on Favored End. After the race, Laura cooked up some fine burgers and hotdogs for the dirt-up. The race itself was short and sweet with decent winds that kept us moving at a good clip. We had 6 boats competing and can handle a lot more – so come out and take advantage of all that our racing program has to offer.
Fred and Chico
Final Results - Cruiser Fleet
Skipper | Club | Sail | Boat | Make/Model | PHRF | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Final Results - Racer Fleet
Skipper | Club | Sail | Boat | Make/Model | PHRF | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Racing and Winning, or Not
When we think about racing, whether its sailboats or other sports we normally think the objective is to win. After all winning is everything, right???? Well, yes it can be. However for me, at least at this stage of my life it is just one of my goals when I am out on the race course. Don’t get me wrong, I love winning. But I also love the sailing when out racing. I love making the small modifications to trim to see if it improves the boat performance. I have a love/hate the relationship with tactics. When we find all the right shifts and sail into all the pockets of wind, it makes for an amazing race – win or loss. When we always tack into headers and somehow find all the holes on the lake, the love relationship starts to have some issues.
I also love the competition. The more we have to work to win a race the better the win feels. And if we don’t win, but still have a close and exciting race the disappointment in not winning is a little easier to swallow. Ok, sometimes it’s not that easy, but it’s a lot better than losing by a mile. And believe it or not, winning by a mile is not always that fun. Sure, it a high when it happens on that rare occasion. But in some ways it feels like there was no competition, and thus not as fun.
For me, BFSC racing has always been for learning. And to learn the competition needs to be there to push each other to be better sailors/racers. For the BFSC Spring Series I am implementing a handicap system which I hope will encourage sailors who struggle on the race course to get a feel for the close competition and will push racers who normally are some of the lead boats to fight even harder to get the wins. It won’t be perfect, as no handicap system is. I do hope it adds some fun and excitement to the racing. Check out section 5 of the “BFSC 2019 Fall Series Sailing Instructions” for details on the handicap adjustments that will be made throughout the Sprint Series.
Tedd Meinersmann
Racing Captain 2020