A Lifetime of Lightning Learning...Listen Up.

As you are no doubt aware...our 2014 Lightning North American Championships organizing committee is constantly on the look-out for ways to VAPORIZE any barrier that might stand in the way of a Lightning team's attending the regatta next August.

One of those potential barriers might be childcare logistics. We're on it. Our team has been looking at ways to provide a safe/giggly/educational experience for kids who would not normally be sailing in the NAs. I'm a marketing guy so I've given the project the following working title:

Kids eating ice cream, cooling out at the beach rainbow looming, killing time with new friends, also sailing, while seriously supervised. (A KickA_ _ time).

KICKA_ _  will be available to children from the hour gun before sailing each morning until you sign them out after your team hits the dock each afternoon.

Jake Faude at the helm. Photo courtesy of Faude Family Foto Foundation

Some of the activities planned are:
• Opti Sailing in the Sail Sheboygan Opti Fleet. (Bring your own tiller extension if you are serious).
• Laser Sailing on a Sail Sheboygan Laser if you are too big for an Opti.
• A trip to the Blue Harbor water park.
• A trip out on the water in a big powerboat or a big sail boat to watch the days races.
• A group sailing trip out on a J-24 with instructors and nutritious food (gluten free options available).
• A picnic lunch at the beach of the group's choice.
• Organic farming. (No, no organic farming whatsoever, just checking to see if you were still awake).

We hope to tailor the activities to make them age-appropriate, so that nobody is BORED and nobody is sniveling while you get a beer after winning both races that day.

This program will be an extension of the Summer program of Sheboygan Youth Sailing
http://www.youthsailingclub.us and be staffed with its certified instructors and use its facilities.
Here is a link to a webcam on top of their building. Please do NOT go there now:
http://youthsailing.axiscam.net/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.swf

The ballpark cost of the Kick A_ _ week would be in the $350 neighborhood/camper.

Here's What We Need From You:
We are building the structure around this week. And to do so, we need some idea of how many instructors to retain. I think I know of 9 students right now who are likely to enroll. Without violating any one's privacy:
3 are girls under 12 from South Carolina
2 are girls under 12 from Western New York
1 is a girl under 12 from Chicago
1 is her brother who is under 7.
1 is a boy about 12 from Wisconsin.
1 is a 52-year-old man. (Me! Sounds like fun.)
Some of these kids are already Opti legends. Some will be by next August. Some haven't taken sailing lessons yet at all. All of them will have a Kick A_ _ time. We could accommodate 3X this number of kids if we could get them.

Do you know some kids who will participate?
Please comment to this post to let us know if you could be interested. We need to get an idea of how to scale the offering.

Have you ever waved to your child as you rounded the weather mark leading the blue fleet at a North American Championship while they were in a beautiful powerboat noshing on nutritious food (gluten free options available?) You haven't have you?! And you say you like to live life to the fullest...

Jack Is Onboard

The ILCA's class representative on the Race Committee boat is an important, sometimes very important position at any large Lightning regatta. For anyone who doesn't know, the Class Rep's job is to assist the regatta PRO with delivering racing that broadly falls within the comfort level of our Association members who have traveled to the event. Lightning sailors are very lucky to have had the benefit of some outstanding Race Officers serving as PRO at our events over the last several years. It's always amazing to listen to them to coordinate their on-water armadas over the VHF when they let us listen.

Now, PROs obviously come in all different shapes, sizes and psychological make-ups. Sometimes, they are experts on local weather conditions and amazing sailors in their own rights. Sometimes they have recently returned from running the America's Cup regatta. Rarely have they attended the last several Lightning North American Championships. This is where the Class Representative enters. This person provides Lightning context. The Sailing Instructions (which likely the PRO helped author or at least approved) will provide course options. The PRO might ask the Class Rep if selecting the  5 Leg W/L course option and using the upper limit of the leg lengths is appropriate for the second race of the day on an occasion when the breeze is 17-21mph and the waves are 11' high. The Class Rep might reflect generally on his/her perception of the condition of the stomach muscles in the middle of the Green Fleet and say "Go for it!" Or they might suggest the lower end of the leg length...Or they might suggest the 4 Leg option...or they might be throwing up on the low side and request a moment to compose themselves.

PROs...we need them on that wall. They need to be very confident. They made space in their schedules two years previously because they are great and their schedules are packed. The regatta organizers are lucky to have obtained their services. They have their teams allocated precisely the way they need them organized to respond to changing weather conditions and get us racing early and often. They can probably tell you every on on their race committee's standard lunch order. They don't know the Class Representative from Adam. Fitting into the culture on the RC boat can be a real challenge. Class Rep-dom is an art. A necessary talent is the ability to become selectively invisible, reappearing at precisely the right moment to have max impact.

Bill Clausen has been our Class Rep at major regattas for years. He understands the vibe of this class...this tribe, as well as anyone in the world. He's been on the Executive Committee of the Class for longer than many of us have been paying our annual dues. But Bill is also the Chief Measurer and he's also a great resource as a regatta photographer. He's volunteered to come out to Sheboygan to the Midwest District Regatta 45 days before the NAs to help our Measurement Team do a dress measurement rehearsal. He doesn't really need the Class Rep gig this year. How to replace him...

The job needs class history. It needs a sense of humor. It needs someone who has experience dealing with stressed/crazy people in stressful/crazy situations. Ideally the person would be uncommonly handsome. The job is just crying out for someone like... Jack Mueller. Thank heavens that when Todd Wake and Bill Faude were prowling the boat park at the Wild Oyster regatta with an "Open to Beg" job opportunity for a NAs Class Rep, Jack was up for it.

(Thanks to Priscilla Parker for this great Jack shot from the Wild Oyster Regatta!!)

Here's a little background on Jack:
• He lives adjacent to a great lake in Cleveland so he knows big water.
• In 1967 with Carl Eichenlaub, he started building Lightnings.
• Between that time and 1998, he built between 700 and 1000 of them.
• He has sailed in the class for about 60 years.
• He has won both St. Pete and Savannah stops on the Southern Circuit.
• He has finished in the top 3 in 6 North American Championships.
• He was runner up to Bill Shore in the Lightning World Championship in Finland.
• He currently sails Lighting 14860 and is going to sail the Masters NAs in Sheboygan.
• He is the father of Jay Mueller (see the previous paragraph where I noted that experience dealing with crazy people in tough situations is a key skill set for this job...)
• He smiles a lot.

We're so happy to have him on the RC boat next August as a resource for PRO Rich Richelsdorfer and the great RC team from Sail Sheboygan. You will learn more about Rich in due time on this blog.

Jack Mueller. Class Representative!! A position you might not have thought much about. But one we're psyched to have filled with someone who will do it so well. You really should consider attending this regatta!

You Are Getting Sleepy...

You Are Suddenly Thinking About Making Reservations...You Are Suddenly Thinking About Making Reservations...when you wake up after reading this, you will not remember anything...but you will be very thirsty and you will have an incredible urge to make hotel reservations for the 2014 Lightning North American Championships.

Greetings all. I hope this finds you all well and thinking hard about how you can squeeze in one or two more Lightning regattas before the water turns hard.

Our organizing group has been very active of late. We're almost done with our draft NOR and we've been planning all manor of social events. We've been in contact with the city of Sheboygan to discuss alterations we can make to city streets to make the traffic flow around our regatta site more convenient for what we hope is 300+ sailors. Since I wrote the last blog post, next year's PRO Rich Reichelsdorfer has run a few more regattas and in doing so, given all the mark set and RC boats their last bit of exercise for 2013.

The most important thing on our minds as planners now is the hope that people who are giving some thought to attending the North American Championships next Summer start evaluating the lodging options that are available and book reservations early! When we say early we mean early...this week would be great. We've already heard of several teams who have already booked and that makes us happy. 

Why the rush? After all, Sheboygan is NOT short of hotel rooms... In fact you will soon see that there are many options from which to select...at a wide range of price points. There will be VERY convenient accommodation for every team attending...if you want to be within walking distance of the club, you can have that...if you want a private beach you can have that...as I say there are MANY options and Sheboygan pricing isn't Midtown-Manhattan pricing if you get my drift. So why the rush? Well, August is a busy time here. And we already know that there will be some car races held the weekend of the WMJs at Road America in Elkhart Lake which is about 15 miles away. There are always lots of people who want to come up and play the Golf Courses at Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits which have hosted PGA Championships and Women's US Opens. Those folks book early and we don't want you to miss out.

One Bit Of Reality Here:

There are at least 10 hotels or motels within 10 minutes of regatta site..most are used to having sailors as guests. One has rooms over $500.00/night. Some are under $90.00/night and even less if you have discount codes. All of the following places are aware of the 2014 Lightning North American Championships.  But none of them is offering a 'special' regatta rate. Why you ask? Because we think the best way for everyone to get the best housing value is to look at the options and pick their own place to stay. No one place would ever be able to block off  rooms for the whole group, and what if you hated that place anyway?

I took a tour of the most convenient lodging options this weekend. My wife was VERY accommodating and accompanied me on the Tour 'd Parking lots.  These hotels are all viable places to stay. Personally, I would stay in any of them without a question. 

Sorry for the dorky poses...I am apparently a dork. Who knew?

This is the Holiday Inn Express. It's in a brand new area just off I-43 at Highway 28. There is a lot of retail around here. Restaurants...Starbucks...Target...Harley Davidson dealership and restaurant. In short, my kids would like to move here. It's about 8 minutes to the SYC from here.http://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/sheboygan/sbmwi/hoteldetail

 The America Inn is right across the street from the Holiday Inn Express. It too is brand new. So if you like the convenience of being able to buy anything you could ever need within 2 seconds of your motel, but you don't want to live with people who stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night, the AmericaInn might be for you! Plus they have suites...perhaps for drying foul weather gear somewhere else besides your teammate's bed?
http://www.americinn.com/Hotels/WI/Sheboygan

 This is the first of two VERY nice hotels in nearby Kohler, WI. The Inn on Woodlake is a Kohler resort which includes access to a variety of Kohler activities including a spa and sports facility including indoor tennis and massage and anything bones tired from hiking might need. Kohler is less than 10 minutes from the SYC and I'm going to predict that there will not be insane traffic on the route.http://www.americanclubresort.com/hotel/inn/inn_index.html 

This is the second of the VERY nice hotels in Kohler, WI. It's called The American Club. It's the only 5 diamond resort in the Midwestern United States which (as you  know) includes some very large cities. The American Club is exquisite. It is at the most expensive end of our hotel pricing scale, but as you recall from macro economics class Freshman year, incredible value can be found at the most expensive end. You should certainly consider staying there. I'm willing to bet you a Fresca that you would find yourself sleeping in the most comfortable bed you have ever enjoyed at any regatta...ever. If you notice, there is no picture of me in front of the American Club. My wife forbid me from getting out of the car. She said it was too nice for the likes of me.www.americanclubresort.com/

 This is the Sheboygan La Quinta Inn. It is a really nice property that is very well kept. It is also less than 6 minutes from the regatta site, so I'd say it's the closest of the places that you need a car at all. They get closer from here so that each of the following places is literally walking distance away. This La Quinta is also close to I-43 and probably the closest Sheboygan motel to Road America, so if you like what you see on this site: www.lq.com/lq/properties/propertyProfile.do?propId=1005
you should probably move quickly and reserve some space.

 The Fountain Park Inn would be the PERFECT place to stay for anyone who loves the Beach Park motel in St. Pete. It's a classic motel. It's directly across the street from Fountain Park which is the scene of a twice-weekly farmers market that is absolutely delightful. Fresh flowers. Fresh produce. Fresh artisan cheeses and breads. Local honey...honey. The Fountain Park is also about 7 minutes on foot from SYC. Great option.www.fountainparkmotel.com/

 The Grand Stay is a very new property. It has suites with kitchenettes. It has ample parking. It is a 90 second walk from the restaurants in downtown Sheboygan and about a 6 minute walk in the other direction from the Yacht Club. This would be a great choice if you wanted to park your car immediately after measuring your boat and not start it again until after the awards banquet. Yep, that will be possible next August!www.grandstayhospitality.com/grandstay_sheboygan_wi.php‎

 The EconoLodge is just across the street from the Grand Stay. So it's is very conveniently located to sleep in and still get to the boat in the morning. We're talking 5 blocks from the lake. The only thing to keep in mind is that the EconoLodge does not seem to be very chatty. Nothing whatever on their marquis? I feel like you can learn a lot about a hotel based on what's up on their marquis...this place is just waiting to be taken over by sailors...with those 4" black magnetic letters. The mind boggles!www.econolodge.com/hotel-sheboygan-wisconsin-WI240‎

The Harbor Winds Hotel is intimate and it's right on the newly-rennovated Sheboygan river.
There are boat slips right outside your river view window. There are about 6 restaurants within less than 200 yards and a liquor store immediately across the parking lot. And there is a liquor store immediately across the parking lot. This might just be the closest hotel to the regatta. I'm going to say you could walk there in 4 minutes.
http://harbor-winds-hotel-sheboygan.magnusonhotels.com/

The Blue Harbor Resort is the largest property on our list of accommodations. Take one look and you think Hotel Del Coronodo in San Diego. The look is similar but Blue Harbor comes complete with a giant water park! Serious water park. It is probably the only property where if you stayed there and got the right view, you could watch your team launching your boat while still in bed. There are many room options here. Suites...conventional rooms. And free-standing Villas which are really nice and also offer immediate access to a very large beach out front. The lake view rooms will offer perfect viewing of the racecourse. I recommend you clamp the GoPro to the railing of your balcony and just come back and get ready to debrief. 
One more thing: I think they do bonfires with s'mores every night in the Summer. And one more one more thing...the awards banquet will be held here.
blueharborresort.com/


As I mentioned earlier, Sheboygan County has become a tourist haven. This will come as something of
a surprise to any Lightning sailor who was last here in 1976. But it's true! This is by of saying that there are lots
of vacation homes for rent in the area as well. I suggest you go to www.vrbo.com/ and select Southeastern Wisconsin.
You could put a few teams together and get a beach house. Just a thought.

Ok, almost done here. There will be more posts about what to do in Sheboygan and the surrounding area as 
we get closer to the regatta date. If you want to start getting to know Sheboygan and beat the rush, take
a look at www.visitsheboygan.com/
Any tourism site that has webcams of the harbor and the beach and has links to sailing activities rocks!
I'm willing to bet we interview someone from Sheboygan County Tourism in this space soon, so keep checking back.

Can't wait to see everyone here. BOOK ROOMS NOW!!

A Regatta With A Concierge Service?

We had an organizational meeting last Friday evening for the 2014 Lightning North American Championships to be held August 7-15 next Summer (You are already planning on attending.)
Our group has divided itself into working groups largely organized by whether the activity will be enjoyed on or off the water. We're working out budgeting and the events calendar so that we can soon broadcast a regatta price, please watch this space as the weeks go by.

One thing we are not short on at this point, is ideas. And one thing we all agree upon and have a lot of respect for was the way the 2013 NAs organizational team culture was so strongly focused in its commitment to customer service. It's been very clear that the competitors felt like the quality of their experience was thee top priority of the folks from Cedar Point. Our team feels precisely the same way. In fact we may just make the uniform shirts idea our own so sailors can find a volunteer whenever they need one.

Then we learned about an idea we hadn't heard of before: A Regatta Concierge Service.
This will be a desk probably adjacent to where you register staffed full-time throughout the regatta where you can get personal attention to any 'challenge' you have during your time in Sheboygan.
• Need your van's transmission repaired? Go to the Concierge and they will recommend the best alternative.
• Need a ride back to the transmission repair shop? The Concierge will drive you.
• Need a restaurant recommendation? That is right in the center of the enormous Concierge sweet spot.
• Want to know where to locate the best brat buns in the area?
• Want to know when the Farmer's Market is next open?
• Want to know how to get a day pass for the water park?
• Need a replacement preferred parking pass?
C O N C I E R G E...You get the idea.

Here's the best part:
The Concierge desk will be manned (personed?) by the people who thought it up: Fred and Gail Tyszka or people they deputize. For anyone who doesn't recognize the name, perhaps this will help:

Gail is Dr. Kristine Wake's mom and Fred is Gail's husband. They're even nicer than Kristine! They know everything about Sheboygan. Gail is a nurse. AND, they understand what it's like to travel a long way from home to a Lightning event. They've attended three Lightning World Championships in Vermont, Greece and (pictured here) at the last one in Italy. They have oodles of empathy and mad organizational skills.

The organizing committee is convinced that this idea is going to have real positive impact on our guests' regatta experience. We're SO convinced, that we're even considering asking Fred and Gail if they'll go on duty immediately after the first of January 2013, staffing a virtual Concierge desk on our website (which isn't live yet, but will be soon and would be already if I got the NOR finished and approved internally and by the ILCA!!) Can you imagine how much of their time we could burn up all Spring if sailors could pepper them with questions about where to stay or how to get to Sheboygan from the Milwaukee airport? Mind boggling!

Ok, that's all for now.  Repeat after me...Fred and Gail....Fred and Gail... Who you gonna call at 2:20AM during the NAs next August? Fred and Gail!!

Learning, Learning, Over The Bounding Sea

Greetings All.
Today is the third consecutive day of 90 degree weather here on the western shore of Lake Michigan. It's one of those days when it would be perfect to take a walk out the the end of the Sheboygan breakwater and dive in off the base of the lighthouse. Now, the organizing committee of the 2014 Lightning North American Championships does not officially recommend anyone do this ( But we, ourselves take advantage, being the responsible adults that we are) but it certainly is refreshing. And it gives me an opportunity to point something out about where we're going to be sailing. It takes MONTHS to heat a great lake from its winter temp...

...to it's peak of warmth. As this is true, Lake Michigan hits its warmest temperature anywhere between the middle of August and the middle of September or just about the time you will be here at the 2014 Lightning North American Championships!! Great how we planned it that way isn't it? Yep, there are hardly any excuses left for not coming...and we've got only about 10 months to chip away at those.

Ok, why am I wasting pixels today? Just to bring to light some ideas we have as an organizing committee aimed at augmenting the sailing experience that will be our core business. Todd Wake and I actively soliciting ideas and thoughts from people who have both recently attended a Lightning North American Championship regatta and who haven't. The idea is to try and avoid pitfalls and blatantly build upon the great ideas others have developed (steal is a word SO loaded with negative connotations don't you think?) Anyway, we've gotten lots of great ideas already. Here's one and here's what we're going to do in response.

In Sheboygan, we are very fortunate to have Sheboygan Youth Sailing. It's a very nice facility right on the grounds where the 2014 Lightning North American Championships!! will be held. It offers sailing instruction for interested kids in Optis, 420s, Lightnings, Lasers, Sonars, J-24s and more. In fact, earlier this week,  Sheboygan Youth Sailing was named an official Community Sailing Center by US Sailing. Here's that press-release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

September 4, 2013

Sheboygan Youth Sailing Club named official Community Sailing Center

Sheboygan, Wisconsin — The Sheboygan Youth Sailing Club, the area’s premiere sailing education organization, has been named a US Sailing-sanctioned Community Sailing Center. The center is just the second organization in Wisconsin and one of about two dozen in the entire country to achieve the designation.

The designation is reserved for programs that offer the highest level of sailing education and public access. US Sailing Community Sailing Centers must be open to the general public without discrimination and all instructors must be US Sailing certified among other criteria.

US Sailing is the governing body of the sport of sailing in the United States.

“We are honored to be designated a Community Sailing Center by US Sailing,” said Denise Cornell, president of the SYSC Board of Directors. “In conjunction with other Sheboygan lakefront organizations including the Sailing Education Association of Sheboygan, Sail Sheboygan, the Sea Scouts and the Sheboygan Yacht Club, Sheboygan Youth Sailing Club is working toward our goal of making sure that every member of this community can experience the beauty of our lakefront and the excitement of sailing, and this designation helps us do that. We want Sheboygan to be synonymous with sailing.”

The Sheboygan Youth Sailing Club offers seasonal instruction for both youths and adults in a variety of boats including Optimist prams for the youngest students, Club 420s for advanced youths, singlehanded Laser dinghies, Lightnings, windsurfers, 23-foot Sonar keel boats and two J/24 keel boats. Classes are taught by a staff of 11 instructors.

In addition to classes for children and adults, the club regularly works with other organizations to ensure that every youth can experience sailing. In the past, SYSC has worked with CampYKoda, YMCA Child Care and the Sheboygan Area School District and US Sailing’s Reach Program to provide summer school learning through sailing as part of the STEM program (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

Next year the organization will also work with Big Brothers/Big Sisters to provide sailing opportunities.

The Sheboygan Youth Sailing Club will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2014. It is located on the Sheboygan waterfront where it has a classroom and boatyard along with launching facilities.

The media and public are invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony to designate the facility as an official US Sailing Community Sailing Center at 5:15 p.m. October 1. The event will be held at the center, 619 Broughton Drive, Sheboygan.

For more information, contact the club at 920-459-0755 or info@youthsailingclub.us. The Sheboygan Youth Sailing Club’s website is www.youthsailingclub.us.

The idea was that Sheboygan Youth Sailing offer a special sailing program created especially for children of Lightning sailors for the 5 days of the 2014 Lightning North American Championships!! We think this can become reality! Sheboygan Youth Sailing is working to offer an experience that would take into account the sailing level of each student and build a 'semi-custom' sailing week for them. Its daily start could correspond to the hour gun for the regatta and end each day at the official dock time for the RC boat. Opti kids can sail Optis. Laser kids or kids who want to spend the days doing tacks in 420s can do that. The Youth Sailing Lightnings will be sailing in the 2014 Lightning North American Championships!! but there are J-24s and Sonars as additional options. Oh, did I mention that Sheboygan Youth Sailing has just been named an Official Community Sailing Center by US Sailing? Oh, I guess I did. Anyway, that was a great idea we got from one of our conversations and we're implementing it.

Youth sailing camp available at a very reasonable price during 2014 Lightning North American Championships!! now THAT is value for your hard-earned sailing dollar. Don't you agree? Really, how could you consider not attending? Ok, I gotta ash my Salem now. Bye.

11 Months Before The First Race

This is the first posting in a new blog dedicated to the preparation for the 2014 Lightning North American Championships. We hope that at the end of next August we can look back at these posts and relive decisions we made and fun we had in putting together the regatta. Maybe a future organizing committee can look through the archived postings and figure out what they should do more and can afford doing at all.

But please understand this: 

This Blog Is Primarily Dedicated To Creating A Better Regatta Experience For All Different Types Of Lightning Sailors...And Making You Want To Attend Next Year. Everything else written and shown here is in service to that.

We're not pro bloggers. In my case it's been 6 years since I've written a blog post. But maybe we will become more adept as we go along. Here we go.

I was walking around down at the Sheboygan Harbor yesterday with my kids...Labor Day. It was gray outside and the breeze was blowing about 18 out of the north. There were about 3-5 footers banging against the breakwater. We were about to get into the car to drive home to Chicago when I saw something interesting. Powerboats. Lots of them. On trailers and in the water at the Sail Sheboygan dock. So I took some pictures of them. Here they are:

Now, the reason I'm showing you these pictures is that these are some of the boats that are going to be on the water helping out at the North Americans next summer. These, along with a large Protector and an even larger Edgewater that often serves as the RC boat are all the property of Sail Sheboygan. They have been added to the fleet, indeed some have even been purpose-designed to be on the water judges boats for all the match racing activity that goes on here. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN To YOU YOU ASK!!! We're very fortunate that they will all be here and ready to go...at least 8 of them. Beer boating...towing...standing by if you capsize...moving marks...helping all of us have fun. In regattas past we've been looking to borrow powerboats until a few days before the regatta. Not so this time. I'm a nervous person. That helps mellow me out...slightly.

As a regatta organizing committee we feel really lucky that Sail Sheboygan is here and hosting the NAs next Summer along with the Sheboygan Yacht Club and Lightning Fleet 187. It has INCREDIBLE facilities. If you weren't here in 2005, the last time Sheboygan hosted a North Americans, you should know that  Sail Sheboygan and SYC are contiguous...they share the same waterfront and there is no fence between them. Together, they offer 4 hoists and they are also right next to two very large launching ramps where we plan to launch and recover boats who choose to go in and out FAST. 

More about Sail Sheboygan and facilities throughout the frozen winter. That's all for now. In the mean time, if you have any thoughts about things we should make sure to do or make sure NOT to do while planning, please send them. We're trying to build a great time. We've got some advantages, and we've got some great recent examples to follow. But we're all volunteers and while we're experienced, we know we don't have all the answers.