Rio Grande Yacht Club, P O Box 220, Elephant Butte NM 87935
Event January 21, 2023, “Frost Bite Regatta"
Skippers meeting, 10:00am at Mast Up Storage
We were greeted with a very fine day. A little cool but sunny with a light breeze. Burritos from El Farro were served and a welcome from our new Commodore, Sue Strasia, started things off as she discussed plans for the upcoming sailing season. Sue plans a Zoom Board Meeting on Thursday January 26 th to discuss RGYC issues for just the board members but plans on having open meetings including all RGYC members as soon as possible. Also we discussed a Sunrise Regatta 25/50 mile race later in the year and a Women on the Water (WOW) sailing seminar later when warmer temperatures permit.
Then Race Committee Chair, Terry Brower, discussed a few changes to be implemented in today’s race for a race to the green buoy just north of Rattlesnake Island. The start and finish line are the metal buoys at the east end of the floating tire breakwater with the white buoy mark just to the north making a 50 foot start line. The start will be several short air horn beeps and the start flag goes up, followed by a long beep marking 5 minutes to start, another beep at 4 minutes to start and then a beep at 1 minute and race starts and flag goes down at the final air horn blast and with the flag down the race has started. Any “over early" boats must sail back through the start line and re start the race.
The race started as planned with 5 boats making up the start with Skipper Ken Tighe on the S2 7.9, and crew Alex, Jason and Anjulie, 2 nd was Skipper Kyle Thomas on his Mariner 19, crew Pat and his Mom, 3 rd was Skipper Terry Brower on Balboa 20 sailing solo, 4 th Skipper Roberta Carlson on her Ericson 26, sailing solo and 5th Skipper Greg Smith on his MacGreggor 26 with Katie on board as crew. The winds turned out to be a little sporadic with wind lines coming from several directions but sailing to the mark was a beautiful sight as Kyle rounded the mark in 1 st place followed by Ken 2 nd , Terry 3 rd , Roberta 4 th Greg 5 th . The most exciting thing for me personally was that Alex and Jason on my S2 7.9 were able to fly the Spinnaker and when the wind hit at 15 to 20 knots we really took off. However flying the spinnaker too us off course so Kyle actually finished first at 1.Hr14.min15sec followed by Ken at 1.16.28, Terry at 1.20.10 followed by Roberta and Greg who did not finish due to the strong wind conditions at 20kts. However, everyone made it back to their slip and Terry and Greg back to the launch ramp so it was a very nice sail and race as everyone was accounted for and safe.
Our next event will be the Valentine's Day Chute Out on February 18 th , the 3 rd Saturday of the month which is also an open event to all interested people. Come one, come all as we look forward to seeing you at our fabulous Elephant Butte Lake. Please call for information or RSVP.
Sincerely
Ken Tighe, Mast Up Mgr
505 328 4826, texting ok or email tighekenneth@gmail.com