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Journal
Fleet Meting, January, 2007
We agreed to move our racing from Thursday evening to Tuesday evenings. We will run our own races. It's likely we will have access to a boat we can use for RC. We will be sending out an RC schedule soon. The first evening of racing is planned for April 24, 2007. Expect several short W/L courses with the first signal at 18:00.
We plan to have crew training early this season. Mark Hergan and Tom Compton are in charge of getting this going.
History
It all started in the "Summer of 69"....oops wrong date. The summer of 2000...that sounds better. That summer three individuals, Garrett Pensell, Myrl Stone, and Carl Muska all had a great idea. Find a boat that would fit in great with the local Havre de Grace location (Tidewater Marina), be inexpensive for newcomers, create a great one design racing scene, and generally have a great time sailing smaller boats. Carl, already owning a Lightning, mentioned it as a possibility, and Garrett while at a boat show simply fell in love with the boat. Plus, a fleet (fleet 192) already existed at Havre de Grace in the past!
Fast forward a year. Garrett now has a boat(s), Carl is still racing strong in fleet 329 (SSA/Annapolis), and Myrl is hunting down his boat. So the fleet creates a name, reactivates the ILCA charter, and starts out as a newly renovated fleet. Within weeks the fleet has volunteered to host the Lightning Labs, and it is official, the bug is spreading.
Following the success of the Lightning Labs, and now that Myrl and Garrett have boats in the lot, a Tuesday night informal session is started. Several interested sailors show up, from Tom Kendall, Mark Sanford, Jason Werner, and Vince Tenrow. The Tuesday night sessions are well though of by the area, and future development is promised. Late in 2001, Jason purchased his boat and suddenly there are 3 active boats, and Carl's traveling one! Wow...from 0 to 4 boats in just one year.
But wait...it only gets better. The fall of 2001 and winter of 2002 produced some excitement. While the planned frostbiting did not pan out, the interest in the boat soared. Ok...soaring might be a bit extreme, but it was an exciting winter. Garrett with his connections and seeming infinite time to search the web and classified ads was able to dig up not just one, not just two, but three project boats for the fleet! Carl decided to go all out and purchase a new boat from Nickels Boat Works. Myrl deciding that Carl's old boat is perfect for him bought Carl's boat. Mark Sanford seeing that Myrl did not need 2 boats, bought Myrl's. And during all that, Garrett went out and found a really nice deal on a 4th boat for himself (this time a complete one!). Of course Vince seeing that Garrett did not need 2 boats (let alone the 6 he has dug up!), purchased Garrett's boat and immediately started designing new sails at Concorde Pt. To round it all out, at the same time, Myrl made up the sailing simulator for Vince to use during one of his excellent seminars. Woody Brumfield, one of the reigning J-24 "kings", decided to join in and purchased his own boat. With the addition of Bob McAnally's boat and Mike M refinishing one of Garrett's project boats, the fleet suddenly grew to 9 boats!
Yes, a nice expansion for a local fleet. Tuesday night Lightning racing is about to start, and more interest is growing every day. With the 2002 summer Regatta in the near future, and a full compliment of local and regional races being planned, expect to see fleet 192 members close by.
Jason Werner
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