The annual Fremont Lake Regatta (aka Little America’s Cup) was an absolute blast this year with some of the best wind we’ve had up there in years!  The weather looked a little daunting Saturday morning which scared some of the catamaran sailors away, but overall there was a decent turnout, esp. for the big boats.  There was a little rain during the set up time, but soon the sun came out and brought some great wind with it!  Saturday and Sunday included two races each of hull flying action.  Brett and Ben on their 5.8 led the pack for each race with Devon and I on the F-18 close behind them.  We even passed them on a spinnaker run and got a good lead but lost it due to overshooting the leeward mark and having our jib fall down on us.  Kelly Winters from Pinedale closely trailed us on his 5.0 and managed to sneak into 2nd place on corrected time with Brett taking 1st and me taking 3rd.  As for the big boats, the Utah Sailing Association was well represented as well with Randy on his Hunter, Jonathan on his McGregor, and Wade on his boat.  Randy ended up taking 3rd overall.  As usual, we had a great dinner party saturday night followed by a rippin early evening sail.  Check out the photos already posted and watch for more to come.  Don’t forget about the Le Beau’s Le Mans Grand Prix 20 race coming up this Labor Day weekend at Bear Lake!

For those of you that are interested in distance racing, tomorrow is the last of a 6 day, 550 mile catamaran race up the coast of Florida and Georgia. The Tybee 500 is now one of the most popular distance races in the world of catamaran sailing and has pretty much taken over for the Worrell 1000 that not longer exists. This year was a very unique year for the race in that there were more than double the usual 10 or so teams that compete every year with 24 boats. Also unique this year is the number of Formula 18s competing (7 total, looks like 3 Hobie Tigers and 4 Nacra Infusions). » Read more after the jump →

From the Masthead

 G’day Mates
 
Welcome to the Utah Sailing Associations’ 50th Anniversary 2009 Sailing Season!
 We’ve come a long way baby!
 
Here’s some background for those new to the club. (just in case you’re asked this on Jeopardy)
 
The Association began in 1959 by a sailor named Cal Warren, who held the first race at Wanship Reservoir, now known as Rockport. As the story goes, the fleet consisted of a hodge podge of several brands of boats, the Finn, Newport, Scows and others, Cal raced a 19 foot Lightning. The regatta was going fine, when dark ominous looking clouds rolled in over the mountains, the wind suddenly and violently whipped up and roared down the lake, sails flapped wildly, the rigging howled and like dominoes the fleet of boats toppled over, pitching captains and crews into the water. Boats scattered and drifted down the lake. It turned out to be a real mess!  Undeterred, Cal and the rest of the sailors had been bitten with the racing bug! » Read more after the jump →

We have now updated the events sidebar and the events page so you can all put these great sailing events into your 2009 schedule.  We are looking forward to a monumental year of sailing and celebration of the Utah Sailing Association’s 50th anniversary.  Come join us for some great sailing seminars, family outings, and regattas in 2009!

G’day Mates

You may ask, “so now what do we do with the boats now that winter is here?”
If you take them to the top of a snow covered hill, push off and jump on, they make a great bobsled!

To help your boat survive the winter, I recommend: » Read more after the jump →