Vallejo 1-2 Race Deck

[Jan Brewer]

Good evening fellow SSSers, your race deck chair is in a pickle as to why we have 60 boats registered tonight at the meeting and only 5 people showing for race deck Saturday morning and then the number dies to 4 for the finish and the start Sunday a.m. and back up to a whooping 5 for Sunday's finish. As Bill Clinton has repeated recently, "it's arithmetic." 60 boats which means 60 crew members for Sunday and only 5 are showing to help on Saturday? And technically there is only 1 crew member from Sunday working Saturday a.m. so . . . needless to say, I'm slightly perplexed and starting to take this all personally. The only saving grace is that tonight at the meeting I scored a boat for tomorrow so I am playing on a protector marshall boat thanks to Tom Watson's connection. Some of us get sooooooooooooo excited about sex and then there's me who is gonna have to take drugs to sleep tonight 'cause I'z sooooooo excited about tomorrow so please, please, please step up and help deck and those who come in early Saturday you will be needed and appreciated on the deck for the rest of the finishers!

 

[pogen]

We had fun on Sunday and I'm pleased that not only did Char get a chance to perfect her Southern Belle impression (coached by Jan), she also didn't miss a single sound signal.

 

[Jan Brewer]

Humongous Gigantic Kudos to the Deck

But first of all, a huge spectacular thank you to all the SSSers who raced. We wouldn't have been there having sooooooooooooo much fun if all y'all hadn't raced. How'd you like that weather too? I ordered it special for all y'all!

Anyway, back to thanking the deck, Saturday a.m. was the absolute minimum number to pull off the deck with Steen loaning us his gorgeous X-DREAM and he not only was captain, he served as the line caller for the race start. Don McCrea was your gun and horn man for the start. Ruben helped Steen with the line. Suzanne and Chris were in charge of the flags and, of course, I was the mouth doing the countdowns. Suzanne and I checked you folks in and everything went off without a hitch. Well, then there was Jackie's fantastic albeit hot dropoff of the doughnuts. Thanks, Jackie. I say no hitch, but it was extremely frustrating to watch Ma S Rover take off soooooooooooo early, not be able to say anything and then finish first without getting a gun. His first singlehanded race ever so . . .

After a quick lunch at the Great American off we headed for Vallejo. While driving up Darren of ROSHAMBO called to say why he wasn't racing and that I would see him later that day when he showed up in Vallejo to do Sunday's race. Now I laughed at that one for a long time. How special is that when a racer tells you why he's not there and when I'll see him next!

Okay, the finish on Saturday was a hoot. Cindy of EVEN KEEL worked with Bruce the dock director of parking the boats and took some cool photos of the deck. Sue of DAZZLER helped with binocs and sail numbers as they finished. Steen called the finish mark, I did the paper copy of times, Sandor did real-time computer logging of the finishes and was supervised by Matt who also called gun or horn for us, Chris was on gun and Ruben was on the horn. So upon completion of the finishes the results were immediately posted.

Sunday start was fabulous as well. David and Char Nabors were early and they helped me set up the deck. And did y'all notice that wonderful young voice who opened the deck? That was Issei, Steen's 6-year-old son. What a cutie he is! Char was promised the gun so that was a no-brainer. David did the flags with Chris and Issei helped with flags. Steen and Ruben did the line. I of course was my mouthy self checking all y'all in. Then Char backed me up with checkins and then decided it was time she also got on the radio and she even learned to say a great dahlin'. So that start was wonderful and slightly painful as we watched Oreo almost not make it back across and then Hurricane was over early. Other than that, a beautiful sight to see all y'all take off down the river.

Then the finish and thanks to TIGER BEETLE Rob we had an update and were ready for ROSHAMBO'S phone call and finish. The finish deck consisted of Char and I on finish times and paper record, Chris on the computer, Don on gun and horn, Steen and David calling sail numbers and order of finishers. For some reason I managed to pull off the gun and horn designation too. Matt was also there and he did computer log-ins as well as Chris so we were able to post pretty quickly again after the finish.

THANKS AND THANKS AND THANKS again for such a fabulous weekend folks. What a wonderful way to finish this year's racing and also my last weekend in the Bay Area 'til January. Happy holidays everyone and feel my pain as I commute back and forth from AZ to TN for a while. No sailboats and no SF Bay -- boohoo! Plus feel my pain as I tow a 4x8 U-haul behind my car tomorrow doubling my gas consumption at these prices!