DN NA Class

Gold Fleet                                                                             
PLACE    Sail   NAME               jsm    R1     R2    R3    R4    R5     PTS  T/O  ADJ PTS 
1        4691   Dennis, John              4      1     1     2     1      9    4    5
2        5014   Isabell, Mark             1      2     2     3     4      12   4    8
3        4961   Davenport, John           7      4     4     4     2      21   7    14
4        4824   Christensen, Mark         2      5     6     1     DNF 29 43   29   14
5        4811   Chatterton, Markham       3      8     3     9     5      28   9    19
6        4926   Orlebeke, Steve           6      3     5     5     DNF 29 48   29   19
7        5214   McDonagh, Jim             5      6     10    7     RD 7   35   10   25
8        602    Meyer, Tom         M      8      7     7     8     29     59   29   30
9        2170   Creigh, John       S      17     14    9     6     3      49   17   32
10       2360   Johns, Pete        M      9      9     11    12    6      47   12   35
11       5366   Koller, Adam              10     10    8     10    11     49   11   38
12       5298   Brown, Scott       S      11     11    12    11    9      54   12   42
13       4249   Kaiser, Rick       M      13     12    13    14    12     64   14   50
14       4137   Smith, Ken         S      12     15    17    18    10     72   18   54

Silver Fleet*
15       5471   Cleary, Timothy           19     18    16    13    17     83   19   64
16       5050   Oelschlager, Tim          14     16    19    15    20     84   20   64
17       581    Renji, Clinton            15     24    14    17    18     88   24   64
18       4140   Hoeper, Peter      M      16     17    20    19    14     86   20   66
19       K1     Shephord, Mike     Plate  20     13    15    21    29     98   29   69
20       5290   Huttler, Patrick   S      21     20    22    20    8      91   22   69
21       5156   Sobering, Geoff           24     22    23    16    13     98   24   74
22       4695   Kiefer, Mark       S      18     19    18    23    29     107  29   78
23       3433   Cummins, Bob       M      23     25    21    25    16     110  25   85
24       K2     Norton, Peter/John        22     21    25    24    29     121  29   92
25       2545   Meyer, Samuel      J      25     23    24    22    RD 24  118  25   93
26       5300   Powell, Stephanie         26     27    27    26    22     128  27   101
27       4148   Lynch, Neil               27     26    26    27    23     129  27   102
28       1419   Markus, Andrew            DNF 29 DNS29 DNS29 DNS29 DNS29  145  29   116

         DNF    DNF # Skippers + 1
         DNS    DNS # Skippers + 1
         RD     Redress Avg points

         * silver and gold fleets raced as one fleet.

A delightful regatta, fantastic ice, great breeze & competition, more racing than the body should experience.   Great food, some spectacular spin outs, with minor damage, and darn friendly spectators at the Pickle Factory.

My thanks to the people who made this event happen; Pepin Ice Reporters, the ice checkers, regatta and race committee members, our hosts at the Headquarters Pickle Factory.

A most memorable series, we wore out Lake Pepin for the season with all our runner tracks.

4695

 

Some comments and observations:

Interesting and fascinating:  There was a voluntary split between gold and silver.  Fourteen of the 28 boats that registered chose each fleet for a perfect split.  We are a remarkably self-aware group.  No silver fleet sailor ended the regatta ahead of any gold fleet sailor.  (Not true in individual races, some mixing, but true in overall standings), split at the voluntary split line.  And no one on the course (at least I did not) knew what fleet any other sailor chose.  Wind was all over Saturday early, but once we guessed at a windward mark location and set a line, we were set for the day.  Winds built to about 15 to 17 miles per hour, the ice held up in the 45 degree afternoon, and a mix of runners including thin inserts, minimum Ts, plates, and angles all sailed with some success.

Many people thanked me for the regatta.  I did little but make a few decisions and a lot of phone calls.  My hat is off and I bow deeply for the help of many.  Some remarkably notable folks:

Dan Heaney.  Excellent sailor who loves the sport.  He was up to travel anywhere, and sustained the desire through delays from early January through mid March.  He put together a race committee package including the start lines originally built by the Pewaukee Ice Sailing Squadron by adding lots of cleaver hardware and anchors to make the line work smoothly, paper pencils, and lots of thought.  He prepared a trailer and modified a duck-boat skiff with a towing bridle to drag it across the ice and a set of custom supports to recover a broken-down boat, afloat or on the ice.  When we lost our four-wheeler, he became a pack mule, to boot.  Thanks!

Jory Lenon.  Jory is the tall, stunning opera singer and monkey publicist (ask her to explain sometime) who sails DNs.  Except she has a lingering injury slowing down her sailing.  Jory left kids and family at home to drive to the far side of the state to help score the races.  In fact she and Dan did all teh scoring double-handed.  And the highlight of her weekend? Some one lent her a boat to sail around for part of the afternoon Saturday after the races.  Wait until HE figures out she uses baseball spikes on the ice.  And she was the banker for the region for the weekend.  Thanks!

P.I.S.S. continent (the Pewaukee team of Mark Isabell, John Davenport and Steve Orlebeke) Mark provided lots of advice and guidance, turned over the books, ordered the trophies, and did registration.  And Issy also ended up re-doing all the forms. Couch (Davenport) wrote the scoring program, entered all the data and produced results in time to get them on the internet early Saturday, and he helped register and laid out everything for the award ceremony.  Stevo packed and drove all the other "stuff" to the site, assisted in registration, and lent a hand at lots of other necessary tasks.

Pete Johns.  Pete was out checking ice everywhere.  He and I sailed Clinton Reservoir several weekends hoping for a weather window.  He drove to Keakuk IA and met Bob Cave to check the Mississippi lake there when we had no ice in North America for the worlds the next week.  It was FANTASTIC, by the way.  He also checked lakes throughout central Illinois, and sailed every lake with ice all winter in five states.  And he won the over 70 trophy at out regatta.  Pete carried, toted, set-up, transported and found what we needed when we needed it.

And the other ice checkers:  All of us want to sail   Someone has to find and check ice before we pack up and head there.  My regular and supportive contacts were John JD Dennis, Mike Jankowski, Steve Schalk (LGIYC), Deb Whitehorse, Geoff Sobering, Mike Derusha, and Bob Cummins.  They all either checked or called someone else (we owe all these unnamed folks thanks!) who checked every lake, bay, and flowage with potential, week after week.  Neil Lynch who sent reports from Lake Superior and the upper UP liked us so much he bought a boat and sailed his first iceboat regatta this past weekend.

And the sailors.  We had several rookies sailing, including a most psyched 17 year old who brought his mother and brother along to his first iceboat regatta as a competitor.  We have several veterans who were sailing iceboats during the 1960's and earlier.  Jane Pegal is a loud, active, and competitive sailor, though she did not make the most recent regatta.  And the rest of us, who are willing to drop weekend plans and drive for hours just to zip around a lake a few hours with some of our best friends.  Dan Hearn deserves special mention.  He is doing uncanny things getting the US Opti program going, so we now have a core of some hearty and happy young sailors.  Dan went to the centrals (we missed him) to run the kids regatta there.  Thanks ALL!

I am sure I missed many others who played an important part.  Lou Loeneke is always there.  Rast is always building something.  Clinton Rengi is making beautiful hardware for mast steps and tiller heads.  Dan's machine makes hardware, Glick and E-man make our motors and deliver them to the site.  Ron makes everything and makes the masts that make us go fast.   This sport is full of wonderful people.