2008 Letter from the Commodore

VSA Sailors and Friends,

2008 promises to be a great year at Valley Sailing Association!

Board of Directors:
My first, pleasant, duty is to introduce our Board of Directors for 2008. They have already been working hard, behind the scenes, to prepare for the upcoming season.
Nelson Laffey is our new Vice Commodore. He is also chairing the Membership Committee, and is continuing to teach his introductory sailing class.
Jerry Chapman, our Secretary, is also chair of the Social Committee, and is planning some fun events for the year.
Steve Wyers is continuing his duties as Treasurer and working hard to maintain the Club.
Past Commodore, Joe Petitjean, is in charge of the daunting task of maintaining our Boats & Motors.
Eric Berla will be in charge of the Grounds Committee, and will need everyone's help in keeping our club in good shape.
John Mullen, a long time member from the past, is returning to active duty, and is chair of the Building Maintenance Committee.
And at the helm, yours truly, Commodore Greg Polanik. In addition to cracking the whip to making sure everyone else does all the work, I'll be assisting the chair of the Race Committee Committee, Phil Cotton, making sure we have the best possible, most competitive racing.

Lightnings:
Sadly, our once dominant Lightning fleet is not as strong as it used to be. Rick Conaway is now the only active full time racer, but he is always working hard to introduce new sailors to this great boat. If we all try to steer new people to the Lightning, there is a good chance we can re-grow the fleet. Of course, Nelson Laffey races his woody Lightnings quite a lot, and has also been using them to teach the on-the-water portion of his sailing class. Steve Wyers seems to prefer racing his Laser, but perhaps he'll sail his Lightning more this year. I wonder if we could get Don McNabb, Rich Niemann and John Voelker to do some racing rather than just cruising, and perhaps we can entice Dwayne Hilton and John Tarnow to get their boats back in the water.

Comets:
The Comet Fleet, on the other hand, is going strong. This has happened in part because of the off-season get togethers, and because they always seem to have an inexpensive boat available for sale should a new sailor express interest. Jason Anuszkiewicz has been working on his boat this winter and will be racing more this season. Eric Berla has greatly improved and will be moving up in the fleet. The stalwarts (Jerry Chapman, Phil Cotton, Don Hanson, Nelson Laffey and Greg Polanik) are looking forward to the Territorial Championships in Indy, and possibly some other out of town regattas. Many of us had a great experience at the 75th Anniversary Regatta last summer. Our wayward son, John Mullen is returning to Valley, ready to teach his grandchildren to sail, and to challenge those of us who have become complacent. Also, rumor has it that Eric Waldschmidt will be rebuilding the old Banana Boat, and getting her back out on the starting line. And if Mark Wissner ever decides to sail his beautiful woody, we'll have yet another Comet racing.
Of course, Corina Iukovici should spend more time driving the old boat purchased from Matt, particularly if she can find crew as good as Eve Samuel.

Lasers:
Thanks to the continuing hard work of Eric Waldschmidt and John Lark, our new Laser fleet has flourished. Eric has done a fantastic job of organizing Regattas at the club, helping to bring outsiders in to see how much fun it is to sail on the river. There are also opportunities for our sailors to travel to regattas at Carlyle and Creve Coeur. Linda Coleman and Steve Wyers are doing well, but with all the fun they are having in Lasers, they don't seem to be spending much time in Mutineers or Lightnings. Hopefully, Tom Lester will be back this year, after time-off working on his (future?) in-law's new house. The guys from ALSA (Bob Finkes, Wendell Fouts, Curt Grueneberg, Jerry Lammers, Al Lieber and Dan Tang) are a great asset to the fleet, so I hope they continue to compete. And of course, we have our part-time Laser sailors: Jerry Chapman, Ed Harrow, Jim Hilgard, Corina Iukovici and Greg Polanik, who will hopefully also race more, particularly on Wednesdays.

Portsmouth Fleet:
Jim Hilgard has volunteered to captain a new Portsmouth Fleet in handicap racing. He will take on the task of compiling handicap ratings for all the boats, and tabulating the results each Sunday. Our Portsmouth Fleet includes such diverse boats as Melges 17 (Jim Hilgard), RS Feva (Jim Hilgard), MC Scow (Jim Hilgard & Joe Petitjean), OK Dinghy (Mark Wissner), Sunfish (Nelson Laffey, Don McNabb, Mark Wissner & Steve Wyers), Wherry (Martin Land), Mutineer (Jeff Susanj), Buccaneer (Rick Conaway), and Hobie 18 (Paul Bryant). Anyone with a boat that is not one of our primary one-designs should contact Jim to let him know what they sail, and if they intend to race.

Cabin Boats:
The Cabin Boat Fleet will be doing more racing this year. In addition to the 7 race Summer Series, they will have a Weekly Series, competing every Sunday (except the regular Sunday Series days), for a traveling trophy. They will also be holding some of their other interesting events, such as Speak Like A Pirate Day, Raft Outs, Island Races, and Bonfires. Additionally, a new event is in the works: a Fun Race, teaming up pairs of cabin boats and dinghies, which will include activities not normally associated with races. Stay tune for more information on this...

Wednesday Evening Racing:
A movement is afoot to reinvigorate our Wednesday evening beer can racing, followed, of course, by Steve Wyers' famous sunset dinners on the clubhouse deck. This is a very pleasant way to enjoy a night at the river.

Race Committee:
Because the Portsmouth fleet and the Cabin Boat fleet will be racing every Sunday, all of our Sunday Race Committees will have to record elapsed times for these boats, not the simple finish order that we do for the one-design boats. We have updated some of the race related information on our fabulous website: www.valleysailing.org (click on the Tips & Rules button and look at the top of the page)
(thank you Corina!). Please feel free to ask for assistance if you are new at Race Committee duty. It's important, for fair and fun racing, that the Race Committees do a professional job.

Regattas:
Corina Iukovici will be organizing the Women's Champagne Regatta again this year. After a great success reinstating it in 2005, she is ready to go again. All the ladies should start getting psyched for a competitive regatta, and the guys should seriously think about lending their boats to women coming in from other clubs, and to volunteering as crew. Eric Waldschmidt's mini Laser regattas are always fun, and they often bring in sailors from other waters. He will continue this new tradition.
The Muddy Rudder will probably change format this year, but our biggest event, The Missouri Governor's Cup Regatta, will be the highlight of the year.

Cruising:
With all my talk of racing, I should not forget that we have access to some extremely beautiful cruising grounds. Those Valley members who come to the club to explore and see the sights are on to something that many of the avid racers may have forgotten: how wonderful it is just to 'mess around in boats'. It's possible to cruise down to Alton, and upriver past Grafton. We should all take more time to just go sailing, and some of the activities we have planned for the season may help with that.

Social Events:
In addition to our usual December Awards Banquet, Jerry Chapman is planning a Spring Party and an Open House. And on the water, we'll be having a Long Distance Race/Picnic.

Harbor Opening:
Our Harbor Opening is scheduled for April 26, river permitting, with the first day of racing on May 4. Of course, we will need a few work parties before then to get the place ready, so please don't forget that we are a small club, and need everyone's help to keep it running smoothly. Luckily, many of our members devote a lot of their time to maintaining the club. In addition to the Board members listed above, special thanks should go out to Don McNabb, Rick Conaway, Ralph Rudy, and John Birtwistle.
Our generous Landlord, Derrill Machens, will be using the 'Orchard', the grounds in front of the barn where boats are parked, for planting this Spring. So all boats, trailers and other items must be removed from this area by the Harbor Opening.

I'm looking forward to a lot of fun this year, so start getting those boats tuned up, and we'll see you on the river!

Greg Polanik, Commodore
3881
Chara
105121
Red Stripe