Worlds

Florida

Multi-boat moves between regions are now practiced regularly. Here six boats from three northeastern states arrive in San Diego for the 2003 nationals.

California

In Northern California, on December 16th, FD sailors gathered at Zhenya's house for a dinner meeting, and roughed out a schedule of events for the coming year. The minutes and proposed schedule can be viewed here . 

Website 

Previous visitors will notice that I have rearranged the menus, but not the actual contents of this web site. All of the public contents of the web site are availible in the left panel. This will improve the behavior of the "back" button, and be less confusing overall.

There have been a few Trapeze articles added to the archive in recent months. See  issues 48 and 54. If you are a first time web site visitor , please browse the offerings in the Trapeze archive.

The 2004 Regatta shedule is now largely complete.

Trapeze 2003

Four issues of TRAPEZE are published each year. Anyone can subscribe by taking out a US (or international) membership with IFDCAUS.  It's $25 for four issues, inside North America. Please add $10 for overseas airmail. See the printable membership/subscription form.

Trapeze 144 is in the mail right now. If you havent recieved your copy before the middle of January contact the Class Secretary to find out why. Submissions for issue 145 by Feb 15th please.

2003 news archive

In October the South African FD fleet also held their National Championship. Our reporter there has provided pics and results from the regatta . Other South African FD and sailing galleries can be found here . 

In California FD sailing continues while we here in the east are gradually frozen in. On November 1st just past, Several teams of the San Fransisco FD fleet graced the water beneath the Golden gate for the first time in a dozen years. The boats too are seeing water for the first time in as many years. Anyone is Northern California, or indeed anywhere, who would like to sail FDs should contact Zhenya . He has several very nice FD's for sale currently.  Here are a few examples of recently resurected and restored FDs on the west coast:

USA-1366, a 1976 Bob Hoare	US-1444 , a 1983 L. Mader

US Nationals at Coronado YC finished with two more light air races on Sunday the 19th. The conditions were just perfect all week. Air temp in the high 70s, and water about the same. Returning to Connecticut in 28 degrees F and mixed rain and snow highlighted for us easteners how wonderful this opportunity was for some sun this late in the year. Another California Nationals is clearly warrented in the near future.

US Nationals at Coronado YC has been  a very fine event so far. 14 teams representing 7 states are here. Three of the skippers are new class members, and some of the boats have not been seen in regattas in many years.These have been restored to action by the good efforts of the San Diego fleet members and Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff of San Fransisco. Three of the teams are made up of skippers and crews from opposite coasts, and more than one team has never been in the FD together before.

The racing has been mostly in light air and New Zealand ex-pats Paul Scoffin and Simon Garland have taken a convincing lead after five races. Paul Hempker/Jason Breeden are in second and Tim Saytles/Pavel Ruzicka are in third. 

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	Paul Scoffin has won most of the races. Here he is chasing rival Paul Hemker.
A view from the committee boat in a light air start. Thanks to Diana Bentley for providing many fine photos, of which these are a small sample. The rest will be made availible to the membership in the near future, together with a full regatta report.

St Petersburg Yacht Club has posted an NOR for Midwinter's. See this document (MSWORD format)  There was some discussion of California boats travelling to this event, as they have a big trailer at their disposal.

 Saratoga's Indian Summer regatta drew four FDs this year. Two from NY and one each from CT and NH. The weather was bad on Saturday but perfect on sunday. Three races were completed, all won by the Hamiltons.

Trapeze 143 is delayed in printing, and will not appear now before the end of October. This will not however delay #144 which is already filling up and will appear before new year.

The US Nationals is scheduled for October 17-18-19th in San Diego. Our hosts will be Coronado Yacht Club.
The NOR and sailing instructions are availible here.  Six FDs are making the trip from the North East to California. 

St Petersburg Yacht Club has posted an NOR for Midwinter's. See this document (MSWORD format)

There is a now a sponsor for shipping containers to SAILMELBOURNE 2004 . See this document (MSWORD format) .  Contact Tim Sayles if you want to go to Worlds in Australia this winter. The cost of shipping the boats is estimated at US $750 per boat, but there must be at least 5 boats in the container.
 

 Saratoga's Indian Summer regatta drew four FDs this year. Two from NY and one each from CT and NH. The weather was bad on Saturday but perfect on sunday. Three races were completed, all won by the Hamiltons.

There is a now a sponsor for shipping containers to SAILMELBOURNE 2004 . See this document (MSWORD format) .  Contact Tim Sayles if you want to go to Worlds in Australia this winter. The cost of shipping the boats is estimated at US $750 per boat, but there must be at least 5 boats in the container.
 

The US Nationals is scheduled for October 17-18-19th in San Diego. Our hosts will be Coronado Yacht Club. The NOR and sailing instructions are availible here.  At least one container of boats from the North East will be going. The latest plan is a truck to go following Saratoga, then pick up the trailor in Ohio.
 

In September region 4 is once again inviting FD sailors everywhere to visit Lake Lemon near Bloomington, Indiana for the annual Bloomngton open regatta , on the 20th-21st.

In October  Saratoga Lake Sailing club invites FDs to come to their open regatta. This is the last stop on the Region 1 championship circuit.

Trapeze 143 is currently in preparation. It will be in the mail befoe the end of September.

August was a fine sailing month for us. In the northeast we had three regattas. On August 2-3 The Miles River yacht club hosted their annual regatta in lovely St. Michaels MD. Three FD teams appeared for this event.  Michael Freitag who is living in Baltimore now came down for his first sail of the season, Tim Sayles and Pavel Ruzicka just arrived  back from European champinships, and long time IFDCAUS veteran Marty Huppert teamed up to crew with Jeff Wrenn. Five races were held in ideal conditions. We sailed on the "inner"course which was really nice, close to the club and out of the channel. Michael and I won all the races, even beating all of the 15 Star boats in some races, who started three minutes before us. Doug and Sue Heckrotte attended in a motor boat and took pictures which they kindly gave us on CD.

The following weekend six boats attended the annual Monomonac Gremlin regatta. The wind started out light allowing the Wells' and the Hamiltons to get good positions, but on sunday the wind was a bit friskier, which brought USA-7 up to the front. Johns Sayles came up from Philladelphia for his first Gremlin regatta. Jon and Ann-Marie Evens acted as race comittee, but the Gremlin did not appear.

Later in August we had a really marvelous regatta at CORK, Kingston Ontario. seven FD teams drove up from the States for four days of racing at what was offically our North American Championships. FD sailors came from Minnisota, Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia, Pnnesylvania, New York and Massachusetts. Tim Sayles had a a guest crew from Holland, Willem Mijsmuller, and they won the regatta. Team Gorbold was a close second, and The Wrenn Brothers took third.
The wind and weather were perfect, and Kingston provided a superb locale, with many fine sidewalk restaurants, live music and fresh ice cream to fill the evenings.

In September region 4 is once again inviting FD sailors everywhere to visit Lake Lemon near Bloomington, Indiana for the annual Bloomngton open regatta , on the 20th-21st.

In October  Saratoga Lake Sailing club invites FDs to come to their open regatta. This is the last stop on the Region 1 championship circuit.

Trapeze 143 is currently in preparation. I am accepting submissions and ads until Sept 8th. There will be pictures and full reports from all the above regattas.

The International FD Class Association is making the decision to allow, or not to allow, carbon masts this year. The deadline for members to submit their preferences using this official survey form has been extended to OCtober 31st. . If you are racing the FD your input is needed. There is much information available on this topic on the International FD web site.

The web site server has been closed for security upgrades for a while, hence the delay in this report. I will post some new pages of pictures in the coming weeks.

Team Gorbold won the Cuspidor trophy at Cazenovia, NY this year, followed by Carl Boller/Jeff Barbero in 2nd and John Sayles/Dan Vito in 3rd, from a field of 9 boats. Winds were on the gusty and heavy side with some thunderstorm activity in the area. Some photos of the racing are availible here .

We are saddened to learn that long time Cazenovia sailor Sam Morse recently passed away. Sam and his wife Content were among the very earliest adherants of the FD fleet at Willow bank YC in the middle 1950's. Sam Morse is creditted with discovering the Cuspidor and first presenting as a Trophy at the yacht club around 1958.
 
 
 
 

Up coming events on the east coast are the Miles River Regatta in St Michaels MD this coming weekend. The following weekend is the annual Gremlin regatta in Rindge, NH contact Peter Wells for directions to the Gremlin Regatta. Both of these event offer lovely summer getaway destinations and warm pleasant wind and waters.
 
 

The North American FD Championship this year will be held the second week of CORK at Kingston, Ontario, August 21-24. All FD sailors who can make it are urged to attend. This is one of the premier sailing venues on the continent. Matt Reichart is looking into accomodations for us. Contact him as soon as possible so we can get a group rate. Also register for the regatta early online on the www.cork.org web site. Don't stay home!

The next regatta opportunity on the east coast is Cazenovia NY, July 26-27. Contact Peter Bushnell , to receive the NOR and directions to the club, if you are not already on the mailing list.

The International FD Class Association is making the decision to allow, or not to allow, carbon masts this year. Members of IFDCO are requested to submit their preferences using this official survey form no later than August 19th of this year. If you are racing the FD your input is needed to make this decision. There is much information available on this topic on the International FD web site.

The 44th Cannonball regatta was held at Canandaigua YC over the weekend of June 28-29. Ten boats participated with sailors from four states. The Gorbolds lost the tie breaker for first place once again, this time to fellow CYC team Chuck Linn / Kevin Roland. In third was a strong team-up of Jeff Wrenn and Nigel Gorbold. Complete results are available here . The wind and weather were excellent with nice light to moderate winds on saturday and a little over 10kts on sunday for some exciting planing reaches.

The FDs are not going to Newport July 12-13. We will make a better effort to publicize this next year.
 
 

K I E L E R  W O C H E 2 0 0 3

About the coolest thing happening currently among IFDCAUS members is that Tim Sayles is in Germany participating in Kiel Week . His crew is a Dutch gentleman named Ronald Stallman. They have never sailed together, and Ron not much in FDs, some of us know what that's like, but you bet they are having a blast. There have been very strong winds in Kiel (force 10!) that prevented racing for the first two days, but on Saturday they finally got to race. 40 boats paticipated and the Boysen-Mollers won both races. Results can be seen here .

Here at home, and much less happily, it seems that Newport ain't happening for the FD fleet. None of the regulars are availible, and no one else has responded to my poll, so I'm not going either. If anyone is intending on going, and hasn't told me or Kim Cooper at SailNewport would you please do so immediately. If three other boats attend I will go too.
 

LAKE TAHOE fleet news and 4th of July Regatta contact Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff

There is also a quite decent second hand Mader boat for sale there. Anyone interested in joining this newest fleet or coming up to fablous Lake Tahoe for a July 4th weekend of FD sailing should contact Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff .
 

In the East, region I sailors should be gearing up for the Cannonball regatta at Lake Canandaigua, NY. A beautiful lake, great party, free camping on the lovely CYC grounds, and traditionally the largest turnout of the region I regattas recommend this event. Skippers meeting at 8.30 Saturday June 28th, don't stay home!

The Hungarian FD fleet have assembled a very attractively designed new web site featuring both Hungarian and English language text, pics and a resource table of European FD sail makers.

There has been more interest in the US FD web site this spring than at any time in the past three years. The only thing preventing people from getting to gether and sailing is communication. There's a page on this web site of regional administrators who would be more than happy to hear from you. In addition several people have taken the initiative locally to rebuild boats and build fleets.

Anyone in Northern California who wants to check out some FD's should contact  Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff . He and several friends have rounded up some decent boats and are figuring out how to rig and sail them. They have been sailing at Tahoe, and are planning on a July 4th "regatta" there.

Anyone in New Jersey or eastern PA who would like to get into FD racing should contact Tim Sayles .

Besides the constant traffic from California and the mid-Atlantic states, there are also many web site inquiries from North of the border, especially Quebec and Ontario, as well as western Canada. Anyone in BC or the Seattle, WA area interested in FD sailing should contact Greg Johnson .

If you have a boat and want to be a local contact about sailing FDs in your area please let me know. If you know of any boats for sale in your area let's get them posted.

New items in the Trapeze archive added in May can be found in #101, #125, and #126.   These articles cover small lake sailing, international travel, and a US national championship.  Added May 31 #103, #113, #116.  Added June 9, #106, #142.

Trapeze #142 is in the mail. If you havent recieved your copy in a few weeks contact the Secretary to find out why. The issue TOC and cover pic are in the archive with the most recent issues.

FD sailors are invited to join the San Diego 505 fleet in the annual BAY-2-BAY race on May 13th. This 25 mile race runs from Mission Bay out into the ocean down to Coronado. It usually takes from 3 to 5 hours to complete, and ends with a luau on the beach of Shelter Island complete with bbq dinner and beverages. Contact Wally Eaton if you plan to participate.

Sail Newport have posted the NOR for this years Newport regatta .(use IE5 or better) It is to be July 12-13th. Registation will be open on Friday the 11th. This is always a grand event. The FDs have attended six out of the last 7 years. Let us keep up this tradition. Please contact me if you would like to attend. I can provide you with information on camping nearby, B&B's and many decent less expensive (relatively) hotels. Besides sailing with the 12-meters in Narraganset Bay, there is simply nothing to compare to Newport on a summer evening in July.
 
 

There is now for the first time in decades, a San Fransisco FD sailing fleet. The organizer of this undertaking is Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff . He and several friends have rounded up some decent boats from the Eastern states, and expect to be on the water shortly. They also have a multi-boat trailer and plan on travelling at least to San Diego.  Anyone in the SF area interested in FD sailing  is encouraged to contact Zhenya.

There are also a new group of FD sailors in New Jersey. They are planning a get together soon, possibly at Monmouth. Anyone in that state who would like to get into FD racing should contact Tim Sayles .

New items in the Trapeze archive this month can be found in #37, #53 and #123.   Added April 28th,  #47, #80, and #81

Trapeze #142 is now in preparation. Submissions need to be recieved before May 10th .

FD News 1 APRIL 2003

On the left coast Wally Eaton of San Diego has organized a fun day for the FD fleet at Mission Bay Yacht Club on sunday, April 13th.
Wally writes "...I had such a great response to the notion of having all the West Coast FD's get together that it's going to happen - and happen BIG! We'll call it the "First Annual FD Roundup".  To date we have 8 boats attending - if Greg gets his boat done in time - with a possibility of 2 more! I got mine finished up over the weekend. We have 3 or 4 new additions to the fleet (still waiting to hear from Don Campbell). We expect to have a few other sailors coming down from up in the LA and San Francisco area just to meet us all and get excited about being part of this fast growing group! This get-together coincides with the Opening Day festivities at Mission Bay Yacht Club. We are planning to do our own FOOD and DRINKS. Candy has agreed to do the food (she's a GREAT cook [the Editor can confirm this, wish I could be there!] ). What she needs though is a little help - with the cooking onsite, and of course with the purchase. $5.00 a head should be sufficient. If you have never been to an Opening Day at MBYC, you can plan on lots of food, drink, music, sun...you get the idea! So come one - come all! We'll (I'll) get down there real early and get a few tables right by the barbecues... Please email me pinzgauerbuilder@pacbell.net , or call us to confirm your attendance. 858-569-0971 . We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you and your boats at the club on the 13th."
 

FD News 25 March 2003

First regatta of the year on the east coast was a very nice affair, as always, hosted by the superb St. Petersburg Sailing Center. We have grown accustommed to a dissapointing turn out in recent years, and this year was no different, with only five FD teams appearing. The 505 Class rostered 17 boats from as far away as Chicago and Boston. Among them this year were Lin Robson and Serge Jorgensen. They were sailing a 505 they have had for about a month, and finished 4th in the regatta. In the FD fleet Tim Sayles and Pavel Ruzicka took first place, and in second came a team of St. Pete hotshots, Chris Russick and Stan Hyatt. Chris and Stan had never actually raced together in the FD, but between them have enough racing experience to float right to the top of this regatta. Caryl Barrett with husband Bruce on the wire drove down from Atlanta and took home the third place trophies.
Complete results can be found at St. Pete Yacht club .

l-r, Stan Hyatt, Chris Russick, Bruce Barrett, Caryl Barrett, Pavel Ruzicka, Kirk Stage, Jonathan Clapp, Dave Stage, Dan Vito . Missing from the picture, 1st Place Skipper and  IFDCAUS President Tim Sayles, who had to catch a plane.