The 18th Annual Fools Regatta!

The 18^th Annual Fools Regatta, Saturday June 14^th, 2008

In my opinion 3 things combine to make a successful Fools Regatta:

1. Good Weather

2. Good People

3. Good Cause

This year was successful on all counts. We could not have asked for a better day. We had great wind around 12 to 15 knots, no rain and a bit of cloud cover to keep people just cool enough. The water in June is warm and inviting and even though it was a little choppy the breezes were strong enough to keep the boats cutting through.

Everyone was having a great time! The Turks and Caicos Football Association (TCIFA) pulled together and served up great Hamburgers and Hotdogs and drinks. Mary Higgs was offering up her usual great island inspired food with her sister and Sonya Hamilton kept everyone cool with her shaved ice machine. The Tug O War tournament kept people entertained on the beach while we waited to see the exciting finishes of the Big Boat Race and the Sloop Race. As well, people cheered on their favourite sailors in each of the Hobie Wave events. There wasn’t a single negative issue in bringing an estimated 500 people from all walks of life to the beach to enjoy the day.

This year the fundraising was a joint effort as the TCIFA took care of Food and Beverages and raised funds for their organization while the Provo Sailing Club earmarked proceeds from the t-shirts and hats sold as well as event fees for the Provo Children’s Home (formerly Nissi House). As well, we chose to bring the Fools Regatta back to the Children’s Park in the Bight this year to softly promote the soon to be Provo Sailing Centre which will be located in the Bight. This facility will be built and operated with a sole mandate of organizing sailing programs – particularly for children - and special events like the Fools Regatta in one of the best sailing locations along Grace Bay Beach.

The event could not have been such a success without the help of a small “army” of volunteers particularly Jaime Hedges and Kelly Hedges who co-manage the Provo Children’s Home and David Douglas of Atabeyra and the Provo Sailing Club who helped pull it all together. As well, special thanks to James Merlevede who came up with this year’s T-shirt and Hat designs – everyone loved them!

I would like to thank our Sponsors for helping us:

The Wine Cellar
Mount Gay Rum
Connelly Zahm Properties
“Blue” from DECR
Lee & Astwood Architects
Abuv-It-All Limited – Mike Rosati
Simon Wood Architects
Provo Golf Course
Mr. Lloyd Evans as our Chase Boat
Provo Primary Steel Drum Band
Dock Direct
Dredknox Sounds / Baller Magazine
Johnston International
Blue Loos
SkyJuice
Beaches Resort

Winners:

Maritime Heritage Federation Sloop Race:

This race was pulled together by J.J. and Goldray Ewing of the MHF and represented the spirit of the Maritime Heritage Federation as the Skippers raced each other for pure braggin’ rights. Everyone on the beach agreed that the colourful Sloops and the traditional cut of the sloop rigged boats were a very pretty sight.

A Class First Place: Mr. Baba Harvey and crew aboard Evergreen

A Class Second Place: Mr. Quentin Dean and crew aboard Eagle III

B Class First Place: Mr. Rob DeMatteo and crew aboard Mary Jane

B Class Second Place: Mr. Lee Penn and crew aboard Cable & Wireless

B Class Third Place: Mr. Marshall Ewing and crew aboard the DECR Sloop

B Class Fourth Place and Special mention: Mr. Leial Missick and crew aboard Valley Stream.

Special Mention:

With a combined age of approximately 40 years, Leial Missick (Skipper) Tao Harris, Ira Capron and David Walker raced the Sloop “Valley Stream” against 5 other Maritime Heritage Federation Sloops and, according to Goldray Ewing, were beating a couple of the adult crewed Sloops through most of the Race. These young men were recognized for their courage and sailing ability and the skills they are building to potentially be part of Turks and Caicos’ future Olympian sailors. With their passion for sailing, properly structured coaching and some corporate sponsorship, there is nothing standing in their way to realizing this goal.

The Big Boat Race (large Sailboats – this year, all multihulls)

First Place: Mr. Mike Robertson sailing the trimaran Minx

Second Place: Mr. Jamie Carlson sailing Ivor Stanbrook’s 33’ Catamaran

Third Place: Mr. Jason Soderquist sailing the catamaran “Captain Mayhem”

Fourth Place: Mr. Phil Shearer sailing the pretty catamaran “Beluga”

Hobie Wave Cat Sailing

The Resort Challenge:

This traditional event is made up of employees of Resorts, or sailors representing their favourite Resort, racing each other for the prized perpetual Cup. This year we added a twist by making it mandatory to include a child/young adult on board.

First Place: Eric Douglas and David Douglas representing Point Grace

Second Place: Percy Parangue from Amanyara Resort and “his kid” (sorry - name didn’t get recorded)

Third Place: Mike Rosati and “his kid” (sorry - name didn’t get recorded) representing Ocean Club Resorts

Mixed Doubles (one Kid, one Adult)

The Mixed Doubles event is really what the Fools Regatta loves to promote – getting kids out on the water. Whether the teams are made up of family members or an excited kid who needs an adult skipper, everyone wins when you see the smiles on the kids’ faces as they race their buddies.

First Place: Millie Twigg and Adam Twigg

Second Place: Patrick Musgrove and Patrick Staples

Third Place: Eric Douglas and David Douglas

Governor’s Cup (“Elite” Sailors)

This event is the ultimate event for bragging rights among Provo Sailing Club members and alumni. Featuring some of the islands best Sailors (at least on Hobie Waves!) this is for a Silver Cup sponsored by Lee & Astwood Architects and for a case of Mount Gay Rum.

First Place: Mr. Rory Stevens

Second Place: Mr. Percy Parangue

Third Place: Mr. Michael Rosati

Bent Prop Award:

(This is a perpetual trophy handed to the Sailor who has the “hardest luck story” of the Fools Regatta. The trophy is a very beat up, heavy bronze propeller that the lucky recipient is allowed to keep for the next 364 days or so!)

This year the Bent Prop goes to Mr. Phil Shearer of Big Blue Unlimited for enduring an epic 6 hours beating into the wind to Pine Cay and back to The Bight again! Phil, thanks for committing to finishing a grueling marathon aboard Beluga – next year will be more fun, we promise!

Tug-O-War Tournament

First Place: Provo Primary!!

Second Place: Johnston International – “Aussies”

Third Place: Johnston International – “Poms”

The Tug o War event was one of the highlights of the day as spectators soon came to the aid of their favourite 5 person teams by jumping in and grabbing onto the rope in earnest! Soon teams grew from 5 a side to 45 a side as the tug-o-war battles raged on.

Thanks also go out to Camille Slattery who organized Kayak Races for the kids with boats donated for the day by Big Blue Unlimited.

Great Sailing last weekend!

Hey All!
Haven't had too much to report for the last few race days however this past weekend was one of the best sailing weekends I've had for months!

Friday became a sanctioned event with 4 boats out on the water by 5pm and cycling through a tight course with 6 sailors (two always waiting on the beach). It was blowing around 20 and gusting at least 25...everyone say "cooooolll". Seas were a bit choppy but we had set a "course" in close to shore using the Club Med dive boats, navigation buoys and Mike Rosati's skiff as the windward mark. Hey, whatever works right? There were some great starts, mark roundings and a couple of upsets which made it that much more fun. Special thanks to Paul who ran home to get two masks and snorkels to help me recover my RayBans that got stripped off my head in a gybe. Too bad James sat on them after putting them in his pocket once I found them! Irony sucks.

Sunday was another great day and we had 7 boats on the water!!! And enough people to sail them - even more amazing! A great showing by the alumni Rory and Simon who were back on island - something tells me they made the trip specially for the first Sunday in the month. Again there was some very competitive sailing going on and experience wasn't always leading exuberance as some of the rookies put in a good showing. Regardless everyone was exhausted with knees practically bleeding by mid-afternoon due to all the tacking action.

Sure hope June 1 will be blowing as I'd love to see this turnout again, especially since it follows the Big South Regatta in South Caicos May 24th and precedes the Fool's Regatta on Provo on June 14th. But those are other posts.
Happy Sailing!

The Big Erection Party

Happy New Year Everyone!

In my haste to get the last post out regarding our new "home", I did not take the time to thank all of the people who helped de-construct the Sailing Shed at my house and re-construct it at our home beside Rickey's Flamingo Bar. The move could not have gone more smoothly; no one got hurt, the shed came apart in sections just like I designed it to and more importantly it went back together in sections like clockwork with alot of helping hands. Hell, the door even closed smoothly after re-construction! Amazing!

So a big Thank you to:

Alex Coronado-Guzman who begged a truck and trailer from Stan Hartling for the big move and helped load and unload the shed

Peter Staples, my father who landed late Saturday for a two week vacation and got roped into the move
Simon Wood, on island by himself and graciously chipping in by showing up at my place at 8:30 am
David Douglas who came down island to my place before he had to do a full day on Atabeyra
Trem Quinlan who made cappucino's and coffee for the crew

Anna Staples, my mother, who was likely wondering why she had to get up at 7am on her first day of her Christmas holiday and who took the pictures of us loading up
Paul Fletcher who met us up at Ocean Club for the re-build and jumped right in
Julian Petrucci, our newest member to be who also showed up to help with the build and to meet some fellow sailing enthusiasts

Jeff Lee for moral support and his superior supervisory skills
Nelson Nakao who climbed like a monkey on to the roof of the shed for the finishing touches, man, he's quick with a hammer too!


I hope I got everyone!

So, within the span of 2 or 3 hours and a bucket of sweat, we managed to bid adieu to our little box on the beach that I built 3 years earlier out of surplus plywood used to board up our condos at the golf course during Hurricane Francis (or was that Jean). Paul and Nelson said a few words during the last opening of the box...
From this:
to this:
I'm very sorry we did not get a group photo in front of our new home. The pic above was just after the last few remnants of the box had been loaded into the back of Simon's truck (thanks again Simon) and everyone had moved on to enjoy their Sunday.

However, here is a group pic of our race day down to the Conch Festival in November, yet another long over due Blog posting but I'll save that for another day...

Good Lord!!
Last update was November 5? And here it is past Christmas...
Where to start? I guess the biggest news for the PSC is the granting of space at the Cultural Center and the building and erecting of the new Sailing Shack that happened over a week ago now. So, if you haven't been sailing over the holiday season, shame on you, but now you'll find a 6'x6'x9' high shed beside the security shack at the cultural center. The same old lock is on the shackle and the key is hanging behind the shed for now. I will be tallying who has paid their dues for the '08 season and sending out a reminder email in early January. After that point I will only be sending out emails to paid members of the club for upcoming events etc. and I will be changing the lock to a combination lock for members knowledge only.

So, if you are still interested in sailing our Hobies but have not paid up yet, please make arrangements to do so.

I will be posting another entry with a few pics in the next while. Please check back again.
Pat

Try again this Sunday?

According to windguru.com, it looks like we might get lucky with some decent wind this Sunday. If anyone would like to commit to racing at 10 am for this coming Sunday Nov. 11 please send me an email or respond to this post below. Thanks.

Shut out again!

Oh well, good intentions shut down by no wind and huge surf. Sunday's scheduled race day was a non-event unfortunately. However, four of us made good use of the lack of wind and fixed the leaking hatches on another boat. Mike, Paul Fletcher, Noel Percival and I spent an hour visiting, wishing for wind and taking apart the hatches on a boat that was less than water proof.

What follows below is a good combination of Mike Rosati's experience on how to fix a boat, Paul Fletcher's suggestion to document how to fix the boat, Noel's photography skills and my posting abilities (and tools).

Step 1: Find the leaky hatch.
Paul described how he took out one of the boats and had to drain the hulls 3 times! So, time to get busy. Under each seat pad is a round plastic hull cover fastened to the hull with six screws. Mike's suggestion to find the leaky hatch was to remove the drain plug and use a kiteboard pump to "inflate" the hulls. Worked like a charm - the leaky hatch started to hiss and was further identified by pouring a little water to see bubbles form around the hatch cover.

Step 2: Remove and clean the hatch
The plastic hatch is held in place by 6 easily removed screws. We used a sharp paint scraper and a knife to remove any dried glue and sand encrusted glue underneath the seat pad.




Step 3: Apply Goop
Once cleaned up apply a liberal bead of Marine Goop (actual glue product) around the hatch opening and place the hatch cover back over the screw holes and screw back into place.





Step 4: Spray adhesive
Next, the seat pad needs to be glued down using a spray adhesive. I used 3M's product that should be allowed to set up for 5 or 10 minutes before pressing the seat pad back in place. Don't be afraid to apply lot's of spray adhesive. Do be afraid of overspray covering your watch face. I'm hoping I can remove the oversprayed adhesive with Goo Gone!

Repeat the above steps for each hatch that you find leaking and don't sail the repaired boat for a day. That should do it for another year!

UK Halsey Racing Quiz

Thanks to Simon Wood for the following link:

www.ukhalsey.com/RulesQuiz/index.asp

This is a great site and worth spending some time understanding the rules of racing. The animations keep it interesting and give you a good understanding of rights of way etc.

Now there will be no excuses on Sunday's race day..."STARBOARD"!!!!!

Thanks again Simon!