On September 10th and 11th, 2011, the first ever and hopefully annual Lake Buchanan Sunfish Regatta was held. We sailed off the beach at The Edgewater Resort and had tons of volunteer support from both the Lake Buchanan – Inks Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Lake Buchanan Conservation Corps. Due to the heat of this summer depressing people into giving up on sailing this year, the high price of gasoline, and a scheduling conflict with the Fort Worth Boat Club’s Old Man of the Sea junior regatta. Still we had six boats and from all comments, they would like to come back next year and drag along fellow, less fortunate, ’fish sailors who missed this one.
To those who were able to come to this regatta, our heartfelt thanks for the competition you brought and for the very positive impression you left on the people who came out to help put on the event. To those who were unable to attend, maybe you can make it next year, you were missed and you missed sailing on a truly unique inland lake… fix that oversight next year, please.
Race 1 was sailed in light, but fairly steady wind (an advantage of being on a HUGE lake with no large hills near the shore).
Race 2-6 were sailed in 5-8mph winds with periodic shifts of 10 to 15 degrees.
Races 7-11 were sailed in light wind, 4-8, with occasional gusts around 10 and winds that slowly rotated from west-southwesterly to west-northwesterly.
Some pictures are shown below the body of this post. Others can be found on the Lake Buchanan – Inks Lake Chamber of Commerce Blog, some others on the chamber’s web site and some other good ones can be seen at:
We had a small turnout, but really good racing. Being such a large lake, winds here tend to behave more like would be seen on a large bay. As expected, Paul Foerster cleaned our clocks, but with the grace of a true champion. It was an honor to be pounded by Paul!
The ladies, in addition to being half the fleet, did very well. Annie Lancaster took second place and Carrie Foerster won a tie breaker with Pat Manning to end up 3rd. The tie breaker was settled at the third place level of the process, showing how tight the competition really was (after Paul). Neither had any first places; Carrie and Pat had the same number of second places but Carrie had more third places, which broke the tie.
Our ladies are warriors, taking positions 2-4!
Vic Manning went the wrong direction slightly less often than I did and ended up 5th. Five of the six competitors were from outside Llano and Burnet Counties, but next year we will have some Sunfish sailors here to stir things up a little.
One Fish owner was on one of the powerboats and got all excited and took my fish out after we were done Sunday. She then came in and confessed to having a 1972 vintage Sunfish (those were the really great Sunfish… stiff hulls!) in her garage (it was her dad’s boat) unsailed for many years. Jay McGranahan is now going to clean it up and come do some sailing with us!
I will leave it for the participants to share their impressions of Lake Buchanan as a sailing venue, through comments posted on my blog and/or on the Chamber blog.
Pictures!
First race Saturday in 3-5mph, but steady, wind the fleet goes upwind. From left are Vic Manning (80119), Paul Foerster ( 8 ), Don Bynum (79138), Carrie Foerster (79551), Patricia Manning (80120), and Annie Lancaster (80640)
Even in the light air, the first boat easily finished inside the 30 minute time limit. We were in VERY light air, but it was steady and there was virtually no powerboat traffic making us bob around. The powerboats that were out were either part of the regatta support team or knew what was going on and stayed well away or at “no-wake” speeds.
The winds were better on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.
The Fleet approaches the windward mark with Paul in the lead and me, and this was rare, in hot pursuit!
There are so many great shots to show…
Olympic Sailing Champion Paul Foerster leads the fleet downwind on Lake Buchanan
Even old men get lucky sometimes!
Race 5: Paul Foerster and Don Bynum start at the windward end of the line while others go for the leeward end.
Later in the race Don and Pat Manning, seeing favorable wind developing on the left side of the leg, went left while everyone else followed Paul to the right.
The wind really was where Don and Pat saw it (Don has a history of imagining wind off across the lake) and they ended up with a large lead over the rest of the fleet.
Don Bynum, Lake Buchanan local sailor, tacks to cross the finish line in first place with Pat Manning about 30 seconds behind. This was the only race that Paul Foerster lost all weekend. It was also the first time EVER that Bynum has beaten Paul to the finish line in many years of racing.
More pictures will be posted here and on other sites in the next week. I will update this site with links to other sites as they come online with their pictures…
This coming weekend (September 24-25) is the Arlington Yacht Club’s annual Oktoberfish regatta. Both Sunfish and Lasers will be sailing so there will be more single-handed boats out to draw the attention of sailors tired of expensive larger boat operation and crew scrounging, as well to provide good spectating for those who have not yet fulfilled their longing to have our sort of fun on the water. I hope everyone who can possibly make Oktoberfish does so, as turnout at regattas has been weak this year and we need to all get our “sailin’ grin” back working.
If you are going, please drop Steve Blake ( s_blake99@yahoo.com ) a note to help them gage how many boats they might have. If you are not goin’… fix that, it sounds like a personal problem to me.
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