Short Tacks – August 2010

New Fleet 5 Web Site Rick Berliner has been working for months to update the look and feel of the Fleet 5 web site. He’s hoping to go live with it sometime in the first few days of August, so give it a look. Many thanks to Rick for his hard work.

Fleet 5 Kids Do Us Proud in Junior Race Week A gaggle of Fleet 5 kids took to the race course in Junior Race Week. By our count, almost 20 junior members of Fleet 5 raced, and several achieved astonishing and enviable results. All of the kids were impressive, but most impressive to us was young Clark Uhl who won the largest fleet of the regatta. With 68 boats on the line, Clark achieved eight single digit finishes in nine races. He threw out an 11. That’s amazing. We should all strive for that kind of consistency. Jamie Bloxham, youngest son of Fleet 5 alums Katie & Jeremy Bloxham also had an outstanding regatta on that line, finishing 4th . Cameron Holley (who we assume is a Holley progeny) took 17th, and David Zymba finished 40th. The Opti green lines also had tremendous Fleet 5 representation. On the ‘even’ line with 29 boats, Stew Hutchinson didn’t just win the line, he annihilated it, picking up seven bullets in nine races. Heather Holly took 4th and young Brooke Pendleton took 17th in her very first regatta. Cricket Tompkins, granddaughter of our own Henry Peper and daughter of our Nationals PRO Tommy Tompkins took 18th . On the ‘odd’ line with 32 starters, Courtney Holley took 2nd with four bullets in nine races and all single digit finishes. Hunter Zonnenberg took 14th , Ben Hutchinson took 23rd and Mike Lane’s nephew Aidan Lane finished 32nd. Old friend Jonathan Braese, who with his dad Steve Braese kicked our butts for several years in Rhodes 19s, finished 12th in the Laser Radials. Thornton Uhl also did us proud as one of the youngest in the Laser Radial fleet, finishing 18th out of 29 boats. In the Laser 4.7, Buck Tompkins took 7th . And finally, young Nicholas Pandapas, sailing an Open Bic for the first time, sailed to a 5th place finish (out of seven boats) in that emerging class. Congratulations to the competitors and to their parents (for the massive amounts they do), and please accept our apologies if we inadvertently missed anyone.