FD News 21 DEC 2002

Trapeze 140 is in the mail. If you havent recieved your copy by the end of the month, write to the secretary to find out why. The issue includes articles about Portugal from the world travellers and discussions from prominant sailors regarding the push to allow carbon fiber masts in the FD class.

Dead line for submissions for trapeze  #141 is February 15th.

There is a tentative regatta schedule for next year. Dates have been fixed for a North American Championship regatta to be held together with CORK in Kingston, Ontario in August. Nationals is tentatively planned for San Diego, CA in mid October.

Midwinters at St Petersburg, FL has been confirmed for March 20-24, 2003. Anyone with the will and a sea worthy boat should attend this regatta.  Its a great treat to sail in sunny Tampa bay when there is still ice on the lakes up north.

The international FD web site has a page of materials concerning carbon spars , including a substantial technical paper by Peter Hinrichsen.

A new page of historical interest is this older wooden FD identification guide . It is made up of pictures that appeared in FD Bulletin and Trapeze between 1958 and 1964. It is fairly limited at the moment, but perhaps some more material will be added later. There are also some pages of old fiberglass boats .

 Our host, Sailingsource , has installed  new server software.  Discus software upgrade is now complete. There are already some new posts in the duscussion forum.
 
 
 
 

Trapeze 140 is currently in preparation. Submissions must be recieved by November 25th.

Seven FDs with representatives from each of the four Region 1 fleets attended Saratoga Sailing Club's annual Indian Summer regatta. On Saturday morning it looked like there would be no wind but it came up suddenly as soon as the boats were put in the water. It blew a steady force five, with ocassional prolonged gusts into the six range. Three races were had with Micheal Freitag / Jonathan Clapp sailing GER-78, winning the first two, and the Gorbolds GBR-367 winning the third. Sunday again began with still air over the lake but then just enough wind to sail in allowed one more race. The Gorbolds won this race also, and GER-78 was disqualified by losing a protest. The Gorbolds won the regatta, Freitag/Clapp finished second, and Bill/Doug Hamilton took third prize.

During the third race Matt & Chris Reichart lost their mast when a shroud control line broke. Fortunately he had a spare mast which was being used as a flag pole. Saturday afternoon and evening a number of volunteers pitched in and converted the reasonable Z-spar to large spinnaker, and moved all the halyards and hardware onto the new mast. Fortunately there was plenty of food and beer. The Reicharts sailed the boat on Sunday, finishing in second place. Matt thinks the salvaged Z-spar is a better mast than the one that broke. 

Three FDs from three states attended the Lake Lemon Regatta put on by the Bloomington Yacht Club , September 21st and 22nd. They raced together with the Thistles in light and moderate winds. There was also a big fleet of Y-Flyers. The Club was delighted to have FDs in attendance and hopes very much to get a bigger fleet next year. September has been a pretty dry month for FD regattas in recent years, it would definately fit into the schedule for those in Region 1 and 2.  Anyone with an FD within a days drive of Bloomington should consider making this their event next fall.

The October regattas in the North east are coming right up. The weekend before the North Americans in Larchmont the very pleasant Saratoga sailing club hosts the annual Indian Summer regatta. Besides the FDs there are Flying Scot, Thistle, Laser, Kestrel and Hobie fleets in a beautiful lakeside upstate setting.

In San Diego the FD fleet will be sailing in several regattas this Fall.  The biggest and  most important is the Hot Rum Series.  This is the biggest regatta in San Diego.  We expect 130 to 150 boats.  It is a PHRF event open to any boat longer than 20 feet.   The FD's PHRF rating is a 105, which is the same as for the Etchells.  We expect four, maybe five FD's to participate.  It is a three day event sailed on November 10 and 24, and December 8. Typically, there is one race that is a drifter and one to two races that have plenty wind.  The actual race starts off with a reach out beyond Point Loma into the Ocean, back into the Bay, around a mark near the Coronado Yacht Club, and back to Shelter Island.  The races typically involve lots of reaching.  If there is wind, the FD's will do well.  If not, they may have to send someone out to tow us back in!   We are doing lots of preparation, especially tide predictions, current predictions, strategy, etc.  We will be starting mid fleet. Several America's Cup boats will also be starting.

Trapeze 139 will be going in the mail this weekend. It features six summer regatta reports including some insightful analysis by National champion (again) Lin Robson. If you are not recieving Trapeze contact Secretary John Sayles to get your subscription.

Issue 140 is already in preparation with reports and pictures from the Worlds attendees, and a number of other interesting items. If you have ads or other submissions for consideration please send them to the editor before November 15th.
 
 
 

FD News 06 SEP 2002

The 2002  FD Worlds   are now done. It was an excellent event by all accounts. The Clube Nautico Tavera  web site controllers did a fine job posting news and race results, as well as dozens of nice pictures for the benefit of those of us at home. American Team USA-410 Lin Robson / Serge Jorgensen did us proud by finishing in the top ten. They were right in the front ranks with other masters of the art such as Cipriani, McCrossin and Kramer. Trapeze readers will read Lin's and IFDCAUS Presidient Tim Sayles'  insights from Portugal this winter.

The Lake Lemon Regatta put on by the Bloomington Yacht Club is a fun open event scheduled for September 21st and 22nd. At least one FD team will be there. Everyone who can bring an FD of any description is encouraged to attend, and if you are interested in crewing on an FD by all means register with the crew pool . If enough FDs participate they will be allowed an individual start sequence. If more than three attend the results will be posted as an FD regatta in the Trapeze. If you would like more information please contact Paul Hemker  (937) 437-7261.

The October regattas in the North east are coming right up. The weekend before the North Americans in Larchmont the very pleasant Saratoga sailing club hosts the annual Indian Summer regatta. Besides the FDs there are Flying Scot, Thistle, Laser, Kestrel and Hobie fleets in a beautiful lakeside upstate setting.

FD News 17 AUG 2002

The World travelers have left for Portugal. We wish them the best. The US has sent teams to the Worlds or Europeans almost every year since 1955, and hopefully this level of commitment will continue in our Association here in the States for another 50 years.

Here at home, following the Gremlin there is a bit of a lull in the regatta schedule, though there are plenty of other matters on our plate for the coming weeks. A few additions to the web site then this month. Secretary John Sayles has initiated a crew finder program. It always is the case that boat owners who would otherwise go to regattas cannot find a crew in time. Anyone who would like to crew on an FD, even though they have little qualification beyond enthusiasm and a willingness to show up, is invited to submit their information to the Secretary. Boat owners in need of crew should avail themselves of this service whenever possible. If this is something you are interested in there is a new menu item on the "FD racing" page where more information is available.

Also on this topic, please observe that there is now a useful page returned by the  "Racing the FD" menu item .  I had for some time hoped someone would compose a primer for the would be FD racing sailor, but this has not been forthcoming. Instead I have put there a Trapeze article written about 40 years ago by Dr. Stout. This article is exactly what I had hoped for, and could have been written yesterday, even despite the many changes the FD has gone through in the intervening decades. For those not familiar with the  history of the FD fellowship, Dr. William Stout was early an adherent to FD sailing in the Chesapeake bay area, and around the nation. He was President of the FD Association in the early sixties and has contributed countless pages of race reports, technical features and hundreds of high quality action photographs to the Trapeze for decades. Dr. Stout is still a loyal member of the Association and Trapeze corespondent in his advanced years.

There are also several newly prepared Trapeze archive items and covers to be found in the index, under numbers 41, 42 and 51.

Trapeze # 139 is now in preparation. Anyone with pictures or commentary to submit from any of this summer's regattas or any other topic please send them to the editor a soon as you can for consideration, and many thanks to those who have already done so. The issue is already shaping up nicely and should be in the mail before the end of September.

 The 40th annual Cuspidor regatta attracted 10 teams to Willow bank YC at the end of July, see the complete results reported by Peter Bushnell. 

The following weekend Miles River YC in Maryland hosted their annual regatta and three FDs raced, sharing the outer course with 11 Star boats. The 505s didn't appear, nor the Hamptons. The inside course included Penguin, Byte, Laser and Opti classes. Chris Wrenn flew in from California to sail with brother Jeff, and win all but the last race. Tim Sayles and Pavel Ruzicka finished in second place sailing Tim's old Mader boat, since his new one is on its way to Portugal. John Sayles and Jonathan Clapp each brought a boat but not crew, so had to sail together. They finished third in all but the last race. The courses were short up-n-down affairs, so the boats never spread out more than a few boat lengths. The wind was light to moderate with some opportunity for trapezing. Saturday evening featured the annual meeting at the Crab Claw waterfront restaurant. This is a gracious and friendly club, with free camping and facilities for guests, in a lovely resort town. The same as for Newport, it is just unfathomable why more FD sailors don't  take the opportunity to be welcomed to these beautiful places.

The Gremlin regatta on remote and lovely Lake Monomonac drew six boats this year. Peter thinks this was about the 32nd running of this regatta, though the origin of the special Gremlin prize itself was traced to 1984. No Gremlin award was given out this year despite a dismasting in a five mph wind. Complete results are given Here . University of Rhode Island sent a team to the regatta Frank Krazer and Andy Marchesseault, with the University's 1975 Vanguard FD . They did well, especially giving lessons on roll taking in the light stuff, and they hope to attend some more FD regatta this year.

HSBC bank and Larchmont YC have released the official Notice of Race and entry form for the 2002 50th anniversary North American Championship.  These documents are being mailed to the membership soon, and are now available for down load below.

Hundreds of one design sailboats including five FDs appeared to Sail Newport. A few unusual crew arrangements, Jeff Wrenn teamed up with Andy Marchesseault, a sailing instructor at URI. Andy is a perfect FD crew (1.96m 88kg), and learned the ropes quickly. Micheal Freitag of Germany is residing in the US for the next three years on a medical internship and took the helm of USA-7 for this event.

You never know what to expect at Newport. This year the wind was a perfect southwesterly force 3 sea breeze which arose by 9 AM, and never waned or shifted more than 15 degrees. The air and water were just beautiful.

Lin unfortunately pulled a back muscle before the first race and was unable to race at all. Tim Sayles / Pavel Ruzicka were very together and fast on the wind, and won the regatta handily, however Micheal Freitag / Jonathan Clapp sailing number 7 took two bullets to finish 2nd overall.

Sunday was a bit lighter after some morning fog, but remained a steady and solid 10 kts from the SW. In one race Jeff and Andy executed a perfect port tack start and never looked back. Tim and Pavel got close at the end but Jeff got the bullet and third place overall.

complete results are now availible on www.sailnewport.org

Tim and Lin are packing up their boats and shipping them to Portugal following this regatta. Tim Sayles is a two-boat FD sailor now. His Worlds boat will lay over in Europe for a year. He will sail in some regattas there, and then forward the boat to Australia Worlds in 2003.

Cannonball + US Nationals at Lake Canandaigua, NY is done. 15 teams attended Cannonball, then two teams went home and one more arrived for Nationals.  Winds were mostly light with a few short periods of 10-12 knots. The Canandaigua organization was impeccable as always. Teams came from Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia, as well as the usual region 1 states.
Nationals ended in a three way tie for first between Robson/Anderson, Hemker/Breeden and Gorbold/Gorbold. This was resolved in the tie breaker by number of first places, 3, 2, and 1 respectively. Caryl Barrett took the helm of USA-176 and she and husband Bruce have clearly moved up a rung or two in the standings. New members Steve and Wendi Heinzelman of CYC have bought USA-1426 from the Gorbolds, and had a very good first outing. Complete regatta results are available here. Cannonball.    Nationals.   
 

Coming up next is Sail Newport , July 13th and 14th. Newport has been a wonderful place to show off the FD, with literally hundreds of sailors young and old packed into this outstanding venue. The teams bound for Europe this summer will be packing up their boats at this regatta. There is already a good line up of FD sailors from at least five states signed up. Please pre-register if you are going, a printable form is available on the  regatta web site under 'general info'. Try to be there if you can.
 

Cazenovia Cuspidore regatta is also in view now, at the end of the month. Many who were at Nationals are planning to go to Cazenovia.
 

Cannonball + US Nationals at Lake Canandaigua, NY is coming up  June 30-July 3. come for two, three or five days! A great time is guaranteed for anyone with a Flying Dutchman of any description.
 
 
 

Following Nationals will be Sail Newport . Newport has been a wonderful place to show off the FD, with literally hundreds of sailors young and old packed into this outstanding venue. There is still time to get accommodations. There are lots of decent places over in Middletown if you don't have the budget for downtown Newport. The teams bound for Europe this summer will be packing up their boats at this regatta. There is already a good line up of FD sailors from at least five states signed up. Please pre-register if you are going, a printable form is available on the  regatta web site under 'general info'. Try to be there if you can.
 
 

This year's North American Championship will be part of the world wide 50th Anniversary of the Flying Dutchman. The event will be held at the very prestigious Larchmont Yacht club. The sponsor of the event, HSBC bank, will be providing the prizes. The first place trophy will be nothing less than two one-ounce medals of pure gold!
 
Larchmont has hosted FD regattas before, and it is a fabulous place to sail in the fall. There will be fleets of 6-Meter, 8-Meter and 12-Meter yachts racing at the club the same weekend. This should be a very high priority date for everyone in the FD class. The weather will be cool certainly, proper clothing is essential, and it will be breezy, there should be no trepidation to do what FDs do best. IFDCAUS members will recieve the NOR shortly.

For Further questions or information please contact:

Job Sandberg
47 Pear Tree Point
Darien, CT 06820
USA
Tel:   (o) 1(212) 525-6490
         (h) 1(203) 655-4003
         (c) 1(203) 554-0357
Fax:  (o) 1(212) 525-5699
E-mail:    job.sandberg@us.hsbc.com
 
 

There is a new Swedish FD web site , featuring some very interesting historical information about the FD in that country, and some fine pictures.

I have scanned and uploaded some more articles of historical and technical interest to the Trapeze archive. These are to be found in the History page and on the Trapeze index under issues 34, 38, 59, 64, 66, 76, 93, 94, 95, 96, 103 and 104. In the 1960's and '70's, circulation of the Trapeze frequently numbered over 700 copies per issue. It's hard to believe I am the only person in this country with a pile of Trapeze back issues,  a scanner, a (free) web page composer, and half a day a week to put these articles together into web pages. Any contributions to this project by past or present FD enthusiasts would be greatly appreciated and appropriately credited.

Trapeze 138 just went in the mail. It contains several detailed articles about FD specific rigging by avid FD sailors, as well as some inspiring editorials. If you aren't actually receiving Trapeze, but only gathering what you can for free by reviewing this web site, you are missing out. It will be another 50 years before the content of the current issue of Trapeze is eventually uploaded to the web site.

The dead line has passed for Cleveland Race Week, and we didn't get enough interest to participate in the Regatta. Maybe we'll try again next year. Anyone who was considering Cleveland Race week, should concentrate on going to Nationals, coming right up, which really will be a week of racing! June 30-July3 come for two, three or five days! A great time is guaranteed for anyone with a Flying Dutchman of any description.
Following Nationals will be Sail Newport . Newport has been a wonderful place to show off the FD, with literally hundreds of sailors young and old packed into this outstanding venue. There is still time to get accommodations. There are lots of decent places over in Middletown if you don't have the budget for downtown Newport. The teams bound for Europe this summer will be packing up their boats at this regatta. There is already a good line up of FD sailors from at least five states signed up. Please pre-register if you are going, a printable form is available on the  regatta web site under 'general info'. Try to be there if you can. 
 
 
 
 

The regatta calender contained some unfortunate errors. These have been corrected now I believe. Note in particular the US Nationals, July 1-2-3. This follows the annual Cannonball ragatta for five consecutive days of racing. The other error was in the date of the Cazenovia Cuspidor. The correct date is July 27-28. A mailing with the complete corrected scedule will be sent to the membership shortly.
 

US FD sailors should be happy to learn that our compatriot and fellow FD enthusiast David Fagen III has made the US sailing team and won several important regattas in the 49er class! David and team mate Bora Gulari have qualified for the Pre-Olympic Regatta in Athens. Have a look at their web site and consider contributing to their fabulous quest: http://www.sail2olympics.com/

The North American FD Championship regatta will definately be held at the very prestigious Larchmont YC , just outside New York City, in conjunction with their Columbus Day One Design Regatta. This is some beautiful sailing water, and promises plenty of wind. If all goes to plan the boats returning from the Worlds in Portugal will be deposited in New York and sailed in the North Americans.
 
 
 

Several US FD sailors will travel to FD Worlds in Portugal end of August. Check out the web site of the Portuguese club hosting the event. If you would like to get your boat into the container for Portugal contact Tim Sayles as soon as possible.

From Guadalajara, Mexico, we hear news of a fleet renewal project. Several modern boats there, including an early Mark Lindsey boat, and the '92 Mader that Paul Foerster sailed in the Barcelona Olympics, are being restored to regatta quality by IFDCAUS members. This is a promising development, and could potentially lead to multi-nation NA regattas in the coming years.

There are a number of highly competitive modern FDs for sale in the US currently. If anyone wishes to enter FD racing in a competitive way they should contact the Trapeze Editor for detailed information.

Anyone with submittals or ads to place in the next issue of Trapeze should send them to the editor before May 15th, 2002.
 
 
 
 
 

Several US FD sailors will travel to FD Worlds in Portugal end of August. Check out the web site of the Portugese club hosting the event:
 
 
 

If you would like to get yout boat into the container for Portugal contact Tim Sayles as soon as possible.

Trapeze 137 is nearing completion and will be mailed in the coming weeks. If you havent paid Association dues yet this year please get to it. There are a number of highly competative modern FDs for sale currently. If anyone wishes to enter FD racing in a competative way they should contact the Trapeze Editor for contact information.

The Midwinter regatta is fast approaching. It will be February 7-10, 2002.  Have a look at the St. Pete Yacht Club web site . Once the regatta is underway results will be posted daily. Pick 'One Design Regattas' from the menu at the left, then scroll down to the bottom of the list and click on the Flying Dutchman link. They are usually able to post results and pictures daily.

The Southern California yacht clubs have published their 2002 regatta schedules. These have been submitted by Region X coordinator Doug Dommermuth , and are now incorporated into the 2002 FD racing schedule. Sailing goes on year round in San Diego of course, so anyone interested in getting together with FD sailors at any time of the year should contact Doug.

Anyone wishing to submit ads or articles for the next issue of Trapeze should do so either by e-mail or to my adress on the ground: Jonathan Clapp, 368 Daniel Shays Hwy, Pelham MA 01002,  before Feb 15th, 2002.

The Secretary will be sending dues notices  soon, hopefully with the missing issue of International FD Bulletin. Watch for the mailing, and return your dues as soon as you can so we can get next years program underway.