Greeting from the Prez – Fall 2005

Fall Party

First, and most importantly, Bruce Bolen is hosting our fall party and awards ceremony; this event will be Nov 19th – a flyer is enclosed. Tape it to your refrigerator and be sure to be there! We’ll recognize numerous Fleet 5 sailors at the party. One of our perpetual awards is for “Outstanding Crew”. If you have any nominations, please forward them to Fleet Captain Mike Lane.

Season Recap

We have tried some new things this year: Roving Post Race Socials, Measurement & Tuning Clinic, etc. with good success. We have continued the annual Spring Organizational Meeting and to send out Race Wraps every week. We plan to continue these next year. Over the summer we have several great parties. Special thanks to Jane and John Casler for hosting the 4th of July party, and to Barbara and Kent Hallawell for hosting the Labor Day party.

Regatta Planning

In 2006, we have the East Coast Championships in Marblehead and the National Championships in Rockport. Please plan to attend, we are lucky to have such great racing opportunities right on our doorstep! Attending championship regattas are a great way to improve your skills quickly, make friends from all over the Rhodes universe and they are a blast! Fleet 5 will be hosting the East Coast Championships and we need your help to pull it off! We are looking for help with all phases of the regatta. If you can volunteer, please contact Mike Lane (978-304-3600 or mlane@katandmike.com).

Fleet 5 Vests!

Congratulations to Doug Trees, J.P. Zonnenberg and Matt Adam. They have all won one of our new Fleet Five fleece vests. The sharp looking navy blue vests with our Fleet Five R-19 logo have been great door prizes at this season’s social events. Tom Despres has ordered several navy blue fleece vests with the Rhodes 19 logo and has them available for purchase for $28 each. If you are interested, please contact Tom at tomdespres@comcast.net or 781-631-8158. If there is enough interest, we can also order other types of gear: hats, shirts, etc.

Katrina

As many of you know, Hurricane Katrina devastated both the New Orleans fleet and the Fairhope, Alabama fleet. The Nationals scheduled for October in Fairhope were cancelled. Fortunately, all of our fellow sailors evacuated successfully, most with their boats in tow, but it will undoubtedly be a long rebuilding process. Fleet 5 has made a donation, with surplus funds left over from our 2003 Nationals, of $1000 to the two fleets to help them rebuild. In addition, individual donations are

welcome and several hundred dollars have already been received. If you would like to donate, send contributions payable to R19 Fleet 5 to Doug Trees, 557 Bay Road, Hamilton, MA 01936; we will send these along to our southern friends with a note recording the Fleet 5 and individual member contributions.

National News

The Annual Meeting has been scheduled for 3PM, Saturday November 5th at Hingham Yacht Club. Please plan to attend – or if you cannot, please be sure to return the proxy form that you will receive in the mail shortly.

Keels

This past June, the Rhodes 19 class Technical Committee issued Rules Interpretation #6. This effectively renders illegal any keel that was faired by Winthrop Marine. Specifically, the interpretation stipulates:

1. Philip Rhodes’ Drawing #5089, of Contract #508, is hereby designated as the plan of the keel, for the purposes of Article XV RB 15:02.
2. Furthermore, in accordance with that drawing:
   • Between points TE1 and TE2 no keel shall be less than ¼” thick at any point 3/8″ forward of the trailing edge.
   • In the area between the two lines LE1—TE1 and LE2—TE2 no keel shall be less than 1″ thick at any point 11″ forward of the trailing edge.
   • No keel shall be less than 5 7/8″ thick at the widest point of the bulb. See the class rules for more details: http://rulesoftherhodes.org/Rulebook.pdf

With the 2006 East Coast Championships being held here in Marblehead and the 2006 National Championships being held in Rockport, it is critical that all Marblehead boats be in compliance with the class rules. Those boats not in compliance may not be eligible to participate in the 2006 MRA racing season. We are currently working to determine the best way to modify the keel to be compliant and to tighten the rule to insure that we do not have something like this pop up again. A discussion draft is posted on the Fleet 5 website (www.r19fleet5.org). In the meantime, if you believe that you

may be affected by this issue, please contact Mike Lane (978-304-3600 or mlane@katandmike.com) for more information

Article

Finally, we’ve included in this issue a short article on local Marblehead conditions, stolen shamelessly from the web site of the recent Sonar North Americans held here in Marblehead. It is a nice tutorial for sailing in Marblehead in August, and I for one will add it to my list of ‘cheat sheets’ to try to figure out how to sail faster