It’s a wrap – end of NAs

After 4 days of racing the Race Committee did an amazing job of getting off a total of 22 races (11 for each fleet) in all kind of conditions. At the awards ceremony, T led with a toast and thanks to "All the boats, planks, and equipment that gave themselves up to the challenges of ice and big wind this week." I won’t go into specifics, but lots of iceboaters will need to go shopping and many more will spend some quality shop time rebuilding stuff. Even T and I suffered damage with my hound breaking on the first windward leg of the 9th race and just as conditions were turning a bit lighter and softer. With no set of extra shrouds and T hound fitting, I ended up missing the last races of the regatta. T had a port starboard situation in the same race, both sailors are fine, but he could not return to racing either.

Saturday racing was called off due to heavy winds, but Jeff Roseberry was still out there ripping it up and was clocked at going more than 60 mph. He should be heartily congratulated on his 15th place finish in the Gold Fleet. His practice and time in the boat certainly paid off. Milo Fleming won the Junior Award and finished 13th in the Silver Fleet. It’s been so fun seeing Milo develop into such a talented sailor and mature young adult since first meeting him when he decided to learn about iceboating for a school project about five years ago. Bob Haag first time competing at the NA’s resulted in winning the Rusty Runner award. Well done, Bob!

And a huge thanks to NEIYA members Henry Capotosto and Nina Fleming for driving 25 plus hours to VOLUNTEER for an entire week helping with all aspects of Race Committee. The volunteers are really incredible with their dedication to pulling off a great regatta for the sailors. We thank you!

For me, if there is any more time on the ice this season and definitely for next season I will make scratch racing courses much longer. At big regattas the course length is a minimum of 1.0 miles. With good starts I am able to keep up with the top sailors for the first 1/3 to ½ of the windward leg, but then they start pulling away. By the 2nd leeward rounding the top ten sailors are just about at the windward mark as the bottom third of the gold fleet are just making the turn at the leeward mark. So, for me it’s a matter of boat speed across longer courses. You see on a small course I am right at the windward mark with T so I went into this regatta feeling like I am really fast, but on long courses it’s a different story. It’s good to know what I need to work on next.

The results are below…and hopefully at least one or two days of sailing on Moosehead will happen before the season is officially over.

Karen Binder
DN 5630

https://iceresults.org/dn/2024nas.html