It has been a busy month of racing since my last Commodore's Letter. Our friends at HYC hosted the 40th annual Hancock Regatta. As usual they had a great BBQ social on Saturday night after a good day of racing. Also, as has been the weather's habit the past few years, one day was a wash due to no wind. This just resulted in some great fun on the river as at least 3 boats were showing off their ability to throw crew overboard during halyard slings. For those that have never tried, a halyard sling is a great way to cool off on a hot, windless day. The technique is to tie a loop in a halyard so that it will be about head high when the halyard is led to the transom. Then motor straight till top speed is reached and then turn 90 degrees. As soon as the boat starts to turn just lean out, hold on (temporarily), and enjoy the ride. A few notes to make it more fun: 1) don't land on the jelly fish, 2) let go of the halyard before you hit the boat, and 3) dismounts are best done in full or 1/2 flip increments. The 1/4 and 3/4 flips are not advised.

The last week of July we held the Parrothead regatta and a great time was had by all. Ten boats raced in fleets evenly divided between spinnaker ad non-spinnaker. The race was run from marker 17 to Oriental with a pursuit start. Afterwards we had a temporary raft-up of 9 boats on two anchors in Oriental Harbor. It turns out that 9 boats, 2 anchors and 15 knot winds are a bad combination. After much drinking, swimming, anchor dragging and a mad scramble to unraft, the awards (bottles of rum) were distributed at the town dock. The very competitive non-spin fleet was won by Packer Tacker, followed by Any Time, Chris and Michelle's "new" Pearson, Silent Pursuit and Sequel. The spin fleet finish was Orion in first followed by Blue Print, Brown Eyed Girl, New York Times and BiFrost. It was great to see NYT and Bifrost racing again.

Finally, we just completed the Dragon's Breath Regatta in Oriental. Forty boats raced for ODC, NYRA, BSC and PSC for the ICRC trophy. As usual, ODC won with an impressive 5 first place finishes for their top 5 boats. NYRA also scored well with 3 firsts, a second and a third place finish. Overall, this race probably had the best wind conditions of any race this year. Awards were not given for the Karaoke on Saturday night. It's best not to have any reminders of that. Results are available via ODC web site.

Upcoming events include the Oar Race over Labor Day weekend and the Hospice Cup in mid-September. Both of these are 2 day regattas. Missy Baskerville is working on the Women's race. The NOR is now available.

Looking further down the road, we will conduct the Winter Series in a format very similar to what was done last year, with the biggest fleet providing race committee, unless someone wants to step forward and do most or all of the RC for the winter.

Also, December elections for officers are not that far away. Any one interested in serving on the board, especially commodore, vice commodore, and treasurer should let me know. I will be glad to help out but after three years as commodore I am ready to let someone else take charge.

Lee King
NYRA Commodore
lrk30470@yahoo.com