Crow’s Nest 06/19/25

Not a Clear Lake Summer weekend goes by without the opportunity for fun, camaraderie and the joy our Club brings. Last Friday night a nice crowd assembled at the Yacht Club and watched, “Melges – Wizard of Zenda” together.  Stories of Buddy were shared; everything from chance encounters wearing a hat inside at the bar to having a Whaler’s gas tank pierced by the bowsprit of his A boat! A “Quicklier” thank you to Stu and Julie Oltrogge for hosting the event, it was truly a great way for many to end the week and start the weekend!

While we’re on the topic of Club gatherings; don’t forget about the next YC party happening this weekend!  6:30 on Saturday at the Yacht Club. E boaters (skipper and crew) and X boat parents are in charge of bringing hors d’oeuvres; wine, beer, sodas and water will be available on site.  Vice Commodore Andi Tisor will be enjoying what sounds to be an amazing vacation, so, that means the Board Members will also be in charge of helping with setup and cleanup of the Club.  Deb Tesar will be the person taking the lead in Andi’s absence, any questions can be pointed in her direction.

Thank you to everyone who has signed up to volunteer for the E Invitational, it’s coming together very nicely!  We do still have positions that need to be filled; those positions are mostly on land and involve helping get boats in and out of the water in an organized fashion.  Please check out Liska’s schedule of positions and help out where you can! – Volunteer Sign Up  We are also in need of safety personnel (in your own powerboat or tagging along with another person) on the water during racing.  Please contact Brandon Conway if you’re able to help in the safety department. b_conway@hotmail.com  Perhaps you’d be interested in taking crew/spectators out on the water, that’s helpful as well!  Please contact Mike Starbeck who’s organizing that area michael.starbeck@gmail.com

E fleet please stop waiting, go out and register now. ILYA E Invite Registration  Also don’t forget sailors AND members, if you’d like a shirt commemorating our event please be sure to go out and order one.  The deadline is quickly approaching to order… E Invite Shirts

Our season so far has been a series of oddities, oddly enough, those oddities didn’t return to being odd, they remained the norm last weekend… The old norm, that now seems to be odd – We had a SSW wind, it’s been a while!  But wait: the wind from the SSW was extremely shifty!  Typically the SSW winds are strong and reliably steady… How odd…All we can do is shake our heads, smile and adjust accordingly.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the persistence and hard work of our Saturday morning Race Committee – Charlie MacNider, Kathy MacNider and Bill Casey.  They were patient and gave us two great races.  A shoutout to Mark Ebeling with his boat full of spectators and Billy Starbeck in the Sailing Center inflatable for moving marks around at Charlie’s direction. We wouldn’t have been able to get races off without your assistance! Thank you all for that hard work and dedication to having quality races.

The MC fleet was extremely naughty Saturday morning… After getting the course squared up, the fleet was rather anxious to get started; in fact twice they were overly anxious and general recalls were forced. In the 3rd start, everyone behaved with the exception of 4 boats who were called OCS, being forced to restart. With that said; A special note from Charlie: *(insert Charlie’s humor) – “The black flag has been retrieved from storage and will be used as necessary.” * 

Once racing finally got under way, the show belonged to Todd Tesar… He made the difficult racing look ridiculously easy as he cruised to a pair of easy wins, never letting off the gas. Stu Oltrogge, who was OCS in the first race, pulled out a pair of seconds. Dan Allen was third in the first race, Emily Haugerud was third in the second race.

The Melges 15’s seem to be creatures of habit. Dave Atkinson had a great day, dominating the fleet and came away with a pair of bullets, Jon Finstad with a pair of 2’s and Riley Cooney with a pair of 3’s. Huh, well at least that makes the writing of a recap easy… No flipping back and forth from my newsletter to the results page.

The X boats were perhaps the most fun to watch, as they are most of the time anyway… Jude Sorensen returned to the water with a vengeance securing two gold finishes. Griffin Harris with crew Braxtyn Kennedy had two second place finishes.  Some drama unfolded in the second race as Griffin, Alida and Avery all approached the finish line at the same time.  Griffin and Alida seemed to be stuck in a bit of a hole while Avery was charging in a puff.  In the end though, that puff just wasn’t enough; the Z-53 team barely edged out Alida and Oliver who were just barely ahead of Avery and Brynn. Good excitement on a Saturday morning!

I wish I had a report for you from E and C boat racing but their season has been disappointing to say the least.  The morning breeze went completely flat and so did the hopes of any afternoon racing.  One of these days maybe I’ll be able to report something more exciting than sitting on shore waiting for nothing to happen!

Waiting for nothing to happen is exactly what happened Sunday morning… The lake was glass, zero wind, period… It was a midsummer’s nightmare in June!  As was to be expected the racing was cancelled for the morning.

As it was in the morning, so it was in the afternoon for the cherished annual event of parent against parent battle!  The lack of sailable wind continued into the afternoon and the Annual Russ Schurtz Memorial Dad/Mom/Lad/Lass race had to be postponed to a later date… That date is TBD but we’ll let you know soon!

Please be sure to remember that any time we’re on the water these days if it’s good general conditions and time permits, we’ll do back-to-back races.  E and C fleets – Sunday afternoon racing is scheduled for June 22nd. Fingers crossed you can get some racing in! A reminder since you haven’t been on the water much, the warning is at 1400 both Saturday and Sunday!

We have regattas abound that local sailors will be participating in in the coming weeks.  Last weekend Mark Tesar was the PRO at the C National Championship, this weekend is the A Nationals which no one is sailing in but Dan Allen will be the Protest Chair. Next weekend is busy for many folks; the ILYA MC Invitational is at Okoboji with at least 5, possibly as many as 10 MC’s travelling the short distance. Toby Sutherland comes to town Sunday, June 29th to put on his clinic for the Melges 15 fleet.  I’m not sure of specifics of the event, but you can feel free to contact Fleet Captain Finley Nyhus for additional info – finleynyhus07@gmail.com. I can’t wait to hear how the clinic goes, a part of me wishes I was in town for that one. For those who are not travelling, no worries, Club racing will still go on as scheduled!!

The Sailing Center is finishing Week 2 already!  If you get a chance and have social media, check out their page on FaceBook; the smiling faces of all the kids are totally worth it! If you haven’t registered your beloved littles for lessons yet, you should do so soon. The Center is approaching its busiest weeks and spots fill quickly. www.clearlakesailingcenter.com

I must also mention the Adult lessons – 12 brave souls enrolled in the program, that’s more than they’ve had in the past and they’re an enthusiastic bunch.  They were out on the water in a pretty big wind on night one!  Welcome to the world of sailing to our new friends!

Wow, that’s a lot of news.  I’ll be off racing in Okoboji next week, thus taking a break from the newsletter.  Upon my return I’ll have updates from the party, clinic, regattas and club racing plus plenty more relevant (and perhaps irrelevant) news to share! Until then friends….

Stay in the Clear Air!

Dan Allen
MC 2811 – Relentless 
dsallen@cltel.net
clyciowa.com
clearlakesailingcenter.com