Preparations
Biscayne Bay Cruise
No one said that it was going to be easy. Lot's of sweat and hard work goes in to keeping up our fleet, but volunteers like James Hart and Casey Rudick are making it all happen. I chose to do this and I love what I do, so please, don't feel sorry for me.
We usually begin launching boats in the afternoon on Wednesdays, then they are tweaked, rigged and ready to race by the time Wednesday Night Racers (WNR) arrive between 5-6PM. We never really know which players are going to show up and it keeps us guessing how many boats that we will need for the evening. It makes selecting who is on what team near impossible and last minute changes are almost certain.
My goal is to have the boats as evenly matched as possible. The racing is a lot more fun if boats are close to one and other, another words, close racing is a lot more fun than when boats are separated by a large margin. This is accomplished by having the the most skilled person at the helm. Most of my sailing career was spend in the front of the boat and that is really the best way to learn. Crewing for someone better than yourself is where it's at.
Summer camp is starting at Shake-A-Leg today, which translates to organized chaos. Two Sonars are now being dry-stored behind the hangar building. It adds about 1/2 hour per boat when launching and hauling. Unless we have confirmed reservations we will not be putting those boats in the water for WNR. Instead, we hope to bring the 2.4mR boats back out for racing.
Our Biscayne Bay Cruise program is pretty cool and we have takers on a weekly basis without much advertising. Danny Evans captained his first Cruise on Saturday. The passengers were a young couple form DC. They looked kind of surprised to see someone transferring form a wheelchair to captain their ride, but I had no doubt of the situation. Sure enough, Danny returned to port promptly and became the first volunteer skipper to receive a tip. He is the MAN!