Lake Champlain Sportboat Regatta

[Jason Hyerstay]

The August date looks good for me personally...  I definitely second the suggestion that we have our own start, but open up the line to other sports boats.  I'd be less enthusiastic about a handicap regatta--

Overall pretty excited to see this happen..would be a lot of fun!

Cool. At the moment I am thinking Vipers only. I just want to be clear about what my previous plan was tho, so it is not misunderstood:

Have all Vipers and TWO local J/70s and ONE local VX One all race together. Score the Vipers for the Viper event, excluding the J/70 and VX One finishes. Let the local boats include these races as part of our summer sportboat series, with the guest finishes omitted. This would be a way for us to get max starts, no waiting for a second finish after every race, and let my local buddies get some turns around the marks. The VX and J/70 finishes would not affect the Viper regatta scoring. Just an idea was tossing about. I won't do this if it dissuades any Vipers from attending.

If I were to invite outside J/70s and VX Ones, of course we would have separate starts and/or courses.

[Peter Beardsley]

I am confused about how the scoring works for those boats AND not have waiting around.  If every Viper finishes and the J/70 is still on the course, wouldn't we be waiting around for the 70?  Not trying to be funny -- this can easily happen. 

[Jason Hyerstay]

Good point. That settles it.

We did such short courses for our Monday sportboat series that the finishes were pretty close.

This will be a Viper 640 regatta for 2014! Simple.

[Ben Steinberg]

If you can get Shed brewery to sponsor us with a keg I will come. 

[Joe Healey]

I second that !!

[Dan Tucker]

I remember a couple of rather drunken J/24 regattas in Burlington back in the day. Very fond memories, I'm going to want to be there!

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk

[Joe Healey]

Jason,

Keep in mind the time of year with the best wind. My recollection of the JY15 regatta is that there was no wind. I think it was mid summer when we were there. It was a great club with great people and the sailing area looked good so I am excited to come back. I went to school in VT and have spent allot of time there.

[Jason Hyerstay]

In regards to wind, July is the lightest. August was pretty good this year, but September is usually the windiest. Two other potential dates have opened up:

September 20-21
September 27-28

Any thoughts on those dates? Would people be less likely to attend that close to NAs?

Also, questions from the PRO:

Preferred course length and laps?

Thanks,

jason

[Fletcher]

September dates sound better - there's always a lot going on with other events in the summer. Maybe we'll even have a nice colorful foliage backdrop for our races.

+1 for the previously mentioned beer sponsorship

[Joe Healey]

September sounds good. Stamford also has their regatta in September this will need to be coordinated with them.

.8 of a mi to 1 mi seems to work well usually 4 legs or 2 laps.

[Peter Beardsley]

Between the Stamford event and HPDO, you're shoehorning a lot of regattas into a narrow band, which historically doesn't bode well for travelers from longer distances (esp. if you the multi-day regattas that are already scheduled are near the same venue). 

That said, if you're thinking the regatta will only be Marblehead, local VT boats and other northern boats (Dumas, Dougall, a couple Canadians), then it's not a big deal - those boats are unlikely to come to Stamford anyhow.  Stamford will be Sept. 20-21-ish, so if Joe wanted to be a road warrior and do both (and he's been known to be a road warrior in the past), great.  You can never count on people to drive more than a few hours though - it is 5+ hours from WLIS to Lake Champlain, so I doubt you'd get more than 1-2 teams to make the trip from our area when there are otherwise 2 other two-day events close in between.

Long story short: schedule when you think you'll have the best conditions and when the people who are most likely to attend can make it and you'll increase the odds for a solid turnout. 

[Joe Healey]

Its only 4 hours from my place here in NY. If at all possible I would schedule the regatta for early September. Cork is in late August and Peter is the defending champ so you can count him out if it were on the same weekend also the Canadians.

Peter when is the biggest whole in the schedule?

[Peter Beardsley]

Early September is North Americans in Long Beach, so it is unlikely that we'll be able to defend the CORK title anyhow. 

Biggest holes in the schedule are mid to late June, mid August, late September, and anything post HPDO.  That said, "hole" is relative - some of these holes are considered by some to be "welcome respites."  That said, the 2014 northeast schedule is not yet finalized, and probably won't be for a couple of weeks. 

I would strongly consider scheduling around what the most likely attendees can make (VT, M'head, Eastern Canada), along with best conditions and convenience for venue.   The goal for Year 1 should be 7-10 Vipers - anything more than that is gravy.  If Year 1 goes well and everyone comes back raving about the venue, we can talk about having a larger event on the lake and doing even more to encourage travelers. 

[Jason Hyerstay]

I really appreciate the advice I am getting from Viper veterans and our class president.

Right now, the top two dates for me would be:

August 16-17

September 27-28

August has the advantage of warmer weather, better for camping and swimming, while the end of September would probably be the best wind of the year and less going on at the club. I am leaning towards September if people can make it. We typically have 18-30 knot wind at that time, and if the waves are too big on the open Lake, our local bay would provide plenty of room to run excellent courses just five minutes from the shore.

I am happy to reach out to various vendors to stock our rolling two-keg kegorator. We only stock it with the best local brews, of which there are many! The recent go-to beer for our club has been Switchback: http://switchbackvt.com

Cheers,

jason

[Joe Healey]

Sounds Good Jason !!