Sonar Fleet 1 News

FLEET RACING:

Sunday September 23:

A beautiful day with the breeze coming from Stamford...sometimes (read: puffs and shifts and puffs and shifts).

We had four guests boats join us today, three from Nyack, one from Manhasset. With them we had 14 boats on-the-line. Our PRO David Eisenberg did an outstanding job setting the courses and running four races.

In the end, Lee Morrison won the day with a total of 7 points. Lee sailed with (L to R below) Don Vasta, Matt Silvaggio (who participated in this year's crew training program), and Susan Morrison.

Team 619

Just one point behind Lee was Scott Harrison who was tied with Lee going into the last race.

Third went to Peter Galloway.

Last Fleet Race:

As we all know, this weekend is the Long Island Sound Championships, after that, we have two fleet racing Sunday's scheduled. Our last fleet race is on October 14.

To encourage participation, we are going to invite all skippers who travel to the LIS Champs to leave their boats with us and race those final two weekends.

We hope to see you out there as well.

Long Island Sound Championships:

We currently have 31 boats registered (including mail-in), 17 from Noroton. Pretty good.

There are still a couple of travel teams looking for housing. If you have room and would like to volunteer, please raise your hand.

The SI's are now available. To download a copy, click HERE

For those of you racing, your boat must be in the water by 0900 Saturday morning. To avoid the inevitable lines at the hoist, consider coming down to the club Friday evening an launching.

We are serving chili and beer on Friday beginning at 5pm.

TEAM RACING:

Noroton hosted the Kirby Cup on SA-SU September 15-16. The Kirby Cup is the Sonar Class Association's team race championships.

The following is a great recap by Jim Linville:

The weather was amazing - clear clear air, flat water, moderate breezes with plenty of puffs and shifts to keep even your Noroton Home Team ever hopeful. The top of the fleet was littered with Noroton members but sadly for your home team, that group was not sailing for Noroton: after our first day of racing (1 win), Bruce Kirby was greeting our team members by introducing himself as follows: "Hi, I'm Bruce Kirby from New York Yacht Club". Please note that his broad grin left no doubt that he was only giving us a gentle ribbing and had enjoyed watching the action all day. However none of this made more than a slight dent in the good times we had, and Noroton should be proud of the Vineyard Haven team skippered by Karl Ziegler, Greg Stevens and Alex Meleny - Noroton members all - who won the first day and lost first place overall in a tiebreaker with Eastern Yacht Cub after Saturday's races.

For most of us who sailed for Noroton, team racing is a wonderful extension of the sport we all love: it puts a very strong emphasis on boat handling, situational awareness, teamwork inside and outside your own boat, and knowledge of the rules and the moves. The races usually last only 10 minutes or so but they seem to go on much much longer because the action is literally nonstop. At the top level the outcome of a race is only rarely decided early on and lead changes can happen with breathtaking speed at mark roundings.

It is remarkable that in team racing, and in particular in umpired events where fouls are called and penalties are taken in real time, that there is very little yelling going on. Most folks know the rules and the moves well enough to keep out of trouble or know that they have been put into trouble because the opposition got to them before they could get to the opposition. And if you don't agree with a particular call, after the race the umpires go out of their way to make themselves available to discuss what they saw and why they made the call. It is so refreshing to have things resolved so quickly and by the way it is remarkable how often you can take a penalty and get right back into the game.

Team Noroton went into Sunday's racing with their heads up and smiles on their faces figuring that it would be statistically improbable that we could do worse than we had done the day before, and to our great pleasure we actually put a brief winning streak together. We also threatened the 5th place team - Seawanhaka - for a fleeting moment by beating them twice, but in the end we held on to anchor the results.

Special thanks to Lee Morrison for organizing the event, Peter Wilson and his great team for umpiring, Glenn Morrison for running all the races - 60 in all and to all of the many other volunteers who made this event possible.

And finally, events like this could never happen at Noroton if it weren't for the owners who make their Sonars available. For my part, they perform an under recognized and under appreciated service to the club and to the sport and on behalf of all of the competitors we thank you. Thank you to Colin Gordon, David Eisenberg, Scott Harrison, Cathy Hoyt, Bill Jason, Bruce Kirby, Basil Lyden, Bruce McArthur, Bill Maguire, Jan & Chip Raymond, Kevin Sheehan, Steve & Melissa Shepstone, Palmer Sparkman, TK, Randy Tankoos, Howard Vickery, Dave Wente and Karl Ziegler for loaning your boats for this event.

Jim

And now a quick follow up by Vice Commodore Lee Morrison:

My perspective watching all the races from the bosun boat: most races were close enough that there was team racing going on into the finish. The fleets were tightly packed, starts were close and there were position changes going on all the time. The weather was beautiful. Boston was on their game. They won most of their starts and when they didn't, they were able to convert into a winning position usually by mark 2. With a couple of notable exceptions (generally against VHYC) once they got ahead, they stayed there. This was a weekend to remember regardless of finishing position.

Lee

NOROTON HARBOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18: