Good Regattas Are In The Details...Chapter 2

Trophies...Another Opportunity To Show Just How Much Fun Over Thinking What You Once Took For Granted Can Be!!


If you're like some of us, you've been around the marks a few times. You are no rookie. You've brought some silver or some glass or some terrycloth home from some regattas. If you've been fortunate, or sailed for a REALLY long time, you have a lot of beautiful trophies perhaps so many that you've had to negotiate with a significant other over which ones you can keep. You might even still have a few in your car right now. Your dog might eat out of a one.

After awhile in your jaded 'Ok, let's get this prize giving done so I can start driving home' attitude, you might even start taking the trophy terribly for granted. That's a shame and it is precisely that for granted at which Jason Bemis of our 2014 Lightning North American Championship Organizational Committee (he's also President of Sail Sheboygan one of our organizing authorities) has taken dead aim.

Give the North American Championship Trophies a little consideration for a moment...Women's, Masters, Juniors, Blue, Green, Yellow Fleets, 3 trophies per boat...it adds up to more than 125 trophies. The challenge is how to hit a price point that will make the trophy memorable and affordable at the same time?
If you're Jason, you dream it up, you get it designed. You digitize the design and you start getting them cut out of solid aluminum on a multi-million dollar industrial water cutter that just happens to be operating deep within your company. This reporter has been told that each trophy requires 6 minutes of machine time and then some buffing and then some cleaning and then coloring and then some engraving and then some assembly. How can what is being done in these videos be accomplished for the paltry sum Jason has in the trophy budget? Not your problem!!

Check out the first trophy being created in these two videos:

(The path of the cutting head on the digital plotter)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRbEAztBF_U

(The cutting in progress)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCzUMUVJqlQ



Behold the first prototype:

From here, the trophies will be burnished before being shipped to Pioneer Metal Finishing's Portland, Oregon Anodizing and plating facility http://www.pioneermetal.com/portlandor
where they will be given color. I don't know when and where they get engraved, but you can bet they will be beautiful when they are complete.

Perhaps you should solidify your plan to attend this regatta. We're reasonably sure you'll be completely bummed out if you miss it.

Good Regattas Are In The Details--Chapter 1.

The weekend immediately past, we hosted the Midwest District Championships for both the Lightning and the Thistle classes at Sheboygan Yacht Club. It was a great opportunity for our volunteers on the RC and measurement teams to become more familiar with their tasks. More than 30 turned out to 'practice' their volunteer assignment. People who have hosted big regattas will understand what an amazing place Sheboygan is.

Chief Measurer Clausen flew in from PA to supervise Lightning measurement and provide us with instruction on how to properly use the measurement jigs and the right techniques to employ when the boats are up on the saw horses. It should be noted that our facilities/site planning team lead by Mark Wessel had previously built the required massive saw horses to the Clausen-recommended design.

As you will note from the photos, our weather was absolutely perfect...for measuring. No excessive sunlight to make reading the scale challenging, or annoying breaths of wind to impact a fair weight. A relative humidity of 100% at all times. 53-55 degrees...textbook measuring conditions. 20 Lightnings were successfully and accurately measured which removes a chunk of traffic from the measurement line when you arrive. You're welcome.

In addition to the technical measuring techniques, we learned the following:
• Once the process is up and running, it takes less than 10 minutes to complete a boat measurement.
• It's good to have two scales available, both calibrated and pre-approved by the measurer for in the event that one needs new batteries or is impacted by excessive moisture.
• The chief measurer has requested we measure the length of all safety lines.
• We need a platform from which to more safely raise and lower the centerboard while it is on the saw horses. Moving a ladder takes too long.
• Owners and crews learn a lot from watching measurement. They leave with their measurement certificates updated and signed by the Chief Measurer.

Our measurement team observed:
• Most boats have significantly more room than required between the rudder and the skeg.
• Only a few boats have centerboard slots anywhere close to the minimum allowance.
• All the spinnaker poles we measured were within the tolerances.
• Even the oldest boats passed the arc measurements. Nobody was too flat aft or too round forward.
• Many competitors forgot to bring their measurement certificates and/or didn't have class stickers in place. They will have to have these initialed by Mr. Clausen prior to being measurement-complete.

For your reference, the image following is a copy of the measurement control sheet that has been approved and was in use this weekend.

You will note that it remains our plan to spot-check a few sails. This saves an astounding amount of time and makes the whole experience much more tolerable...could we say even enjoyable?! As you can tell from the form above, we will check all sails for royalty stickers. It remains your responsibility to sail with legal sails. Should you fail a spot measurement you will be scored DSQ in every race during which you used that sail.

Bring your measurement certificate. Pay your dues in advance and put your sticker in place. Sort out your safety gear in advance and we will fly through measurement and get into the serious fun.