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Photo copyright WaveCrestImages.com
Visit www.WaveCrestImages.com for more NCOC regatta photos.
J U N E 2 0 0 8 N E W S L E T T E R As some of you may know, I work for a trade organization that represents CPAs, and I have often been amazed at the volunteerism among the CPA community. These people give a lot of their valuable time to the members of the AICPA, and I sometimes wondered why; but then again, how are they any different from NYRA? It takes a lot of time and effort to make sure races occur, and we have a wonderful group of people who volunteer their time to NYRA to ensure we have quality racing in the area. This club is there so that it s members can have a venue for racing on the Neuse River and out in the ocean. I was reviewing our membership roster, and as of last week we had 28 members. On a typical race with 12 boats, we have close to 100 competitors our racing, yet they don't join the one organization that helps to make that happen. An associate membership is $25 and a full membership is $50. NYRA has almost $2,000 of fixed costs every year for things like insurance, US Sailing dues, PHRF dues, PO Boxes and such. Our membership fees are designed to cover these costs, and without members we can't do it. On a similar note, without participation in races, why would you expect the volunteers to continue to run them? For the NYRA Invitational, probably the longest running race we are responsible for, we had six San Juan 21s, 2 Catalina 22s, a Tanzer 26 and two Beneteau 36.7s show up. This turnout is well below what we have been experiencing in races recently. I think there were a lot of reasons why people weren t there, some better than others, but we put out the calendar 6 months ago, so I would think people could have put this on their calendar. We - meaning myself and all of the people who enjoy racing on the river - need to be a part of NYRA and participate in events. OK, I'm stepping down from my soap box now The NYRA invitational was held out of the new Bridgeton Marina, and I must say that it is going to be one fantastic place once it is complete. The small boats were able to race between Bridgeton Harbor and Union Point, offering great visibility to racing from those ashore in New Bern. There was quite a crowd watching as the boats battled fluky winds on Saturday. The bigger boats ran a distance course using government marks, which was a lot of fun. The winds were fickle on the other end of the river as well, causing numerous lead changes between Blueprint and Brown Eyed Girl. The big rigs on these boats served them well in the light winds, and Sails Call struggled to find wind in those conditions. The winds started to build toward the end of the race, and with only 1 boat length of separation between Brown Eyed Girl and Blueprint after 3 hours of racing, it was to be a downwind sprint to the finish. Blueprint put their spinnaker up on a tight reach to the turning mark off of Union Point, and Brown Eyed Girl waited till passing the mark to hoist, which turned out to be a good decision. A gust of wind hit Blueprint just as they got to the mark with disastrous result, which presumably was caught on film. Tough luck after a very well-sailed race. The dinner that night was served up by Bridgeton Butcher Market, and after some trials with getting the grill started, they served up one of the best cookout meals I have had in a long time. There were three San Juans racing in the Spinnaker fleet while the Catalina 22s and working sails San Juan 21s had a fleet of 6. On Sunday, it was not quite the same as on Saturday, and as one person said, it really isn t fun going out in survival conditions. After a few short races, everyone went in and called it a day. The North Carolina Offshore Championship was held in Beaufort NC with some varying conditions as well. This year we moved the race headquarters to the Maritime Museum property, and another great new venue for holding a regatta. They are still under construction, but we will be able to host a good size regatta of boats there in the future. It is convenient to the ocean and well protected, making it a perfect venue. Photos of the race can be seen at www.wavecrestimages.com and complete results can be found here. It has been a busy month for NYRA with the NYRA Invitational and NCOC races so close together. I will have some photos of the NYRA invitational available, soon. I would like to give a special thanks to the following:
If you see these people, please make sure you take the time to thank them, because without volunteers, we would not exist. See you on the water!Eddy Parker NYRA Commodore Eddy52257@yahoo.com
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