The past month of racing on the upper Neuse has consisted of Fairfield Harbor's Oar Regatta and the Blackbeard Regatta. The Oar race was held in painfully light conditions with some boats not finishing the shortened course from near marker 17 to Minnesott in 5 hours. The Sunday buoy race was better, but still in very light conditions. In the boredom prior to the start on Sunday there were plenty of water balloon shots (note that not all boats seemed to be equipped for this aspect of the regatta) and halyard slings, one of which turned out to be clothing optional (no pictures available). Congratulations to EZ and Boartaint for winning the two spinnaker classes and to Echo for the most creative use of one glove. See the Calendar page on the web site for complete race results.

I was not able to attend the Blackbeard Regatta and it is not a NYRA BOTY event. If anyone has an article about it we will be glad to post it next month.

The NYRA women' s race is scheduled for Sept 23 in Oriental and we look forward to another great regatta.

The board met this month and firmed up plans for the Winter Series and socials. The NOR will be posted soon. Basically the Winter Series will be run like last year with the RC drawn from volunteers that are signed up to race. The schedule for the socials will also be published soon. There is nothing in the NOR about this, but generally nude halyard slings are not encouraged in the Winter Series.

We also discussed plans for NCYRA for 2007. Lee King will chair this event in 2007 and planning is already under way. It will be held over Memorial Day weekend, as in past years. The NOR and other details for NCYRA will be published much sooner than last year. Please go ahead and start making plans to attend as we would like to grow this event from year to year. Any suggestions or volunteers will also be appreciated.

Finally, elections are coming up in December and we need to get some more people involved in the leadership of your club. The Commodore, Vice Commodore and at least one director position are open. Over the past three years we have established that you don't have to be from New Bern to serve on the board. We only have meetings about 6 times a year. The only requirement is an email account a willingness to keep racing alive on the Neuse. If you are interested in any of these positions please let me know.

Lee King
NYRA Commodore
lrk30470@yahoo.com