The seven of us met and have a proposed agenda/schedule for the year.
In attendance was:

1.      JJ Jimenez
2.      Vlad Rivkin
3.      Dave Blackmon
4.      Victor Rising
5.      Chris Wrenn
6.      Diane Ferro
7.      Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff

Jason Lawrence met with me earlier in the day to reflect on his goals and preferences for the upcoming year.

We had some animated discussions about memorable sailing days (mostly sailing disasters), and Chris was kind enough to bring picture albums of his sailing experiences.

We had the US FD Associations B+C boat to view and discuss. Victor may take it, and begin the work of assembling it after the New Year.

Dave created promotional CDs with a background and pictures of FDs in action. He passed them out for distribution as color printed handouts to post around the area. We have a couple here and if anyone local could use them to post in their area let me know. We have this to add to the FD background DVD that Dave translated from the VCR tape. We have duplicated them for general distribution and promotion.

There is movement underway to purchase/create a Northern California Website. The purpose would be to have a central location to post pertinent Northern California FD information, dates and times. Let me know what you all think?

As a proposal, Chris mentioned that his experience in the East has shown that a guideline of 6 regattas per year seems to be a full plate for people with family and business obligations. With that in mind we have proposed the following schedule for Northern California sailing. We hope to use this as a basis to coordinate with the sailors in San Diego. Our intent is to send 1-3 boats to an Eastern regatta(s), and support Southern California sailing dates. The final dates and schedule will try to accommodate, and not conflict, with S.D. sailing dates. We would like to be able to adjust our final dates with all of the sailing opportunities.

December: NO FORMAL GATHERING. Too much to do with family and holiday stuff

January: ASSEMBLE THE BOATS. The consensus was that we should try and put all of the boats together in this month and meet towards the end of the month to see what is working and what was assembled correctly. To be done at Pete’s Harbor in Redwood City.

February: PERFORMANCE CHECKING. We thought that we might get together, set a buoy and see which boat points, and make the others come close to that one. Then we might try to launch some spinnakers and see what is working. The emphasis was to be on short legs to see what coarse adjustments can be made to make the boats work. To be done in Santa Cruz.

March: NO FORMAL GATHERING.

April: TUNING CLINIC. Bernardo, Doug, and Chris mentioned that they would be willing to come up to the North, spend 2-3 days, to help us get boat speed and some basic speed enhancements. To be done in Pete’s Harbor, Redwood City.

May:  NO FORMAL GATHERING.

June: NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INVITATIONAL. We had hoped to invite sailors from Southern California and possible Chris Cole to participate in a regatta on San Francisco Bay. Our hope is to find a section of the Bay that would be reasonable, but with medium winds. This month should provide that kind of environment. To be done off Treasure Island or Sausalito.

July: MOUNTAIN REGATTA - PART 1. This will be a double weekend set of races. The idea is to bring the boats to Tahoe on our triple and double trailers. We will leave them at the sailing site, rigged. There will be a 3-4 week break and we will return to sail them the following month. Vlad and Zhenya will fly up the remaining people to allow quick round trip connections. To be done at Lake Tahoe (TBD North or South shore).

August: MOUNTAIN REGATTA – PART 2. Second part of the series. We will fly most of the participants up from the Bay Area. There will be 2 drivers making the round trip to return the boats to the Bay Area. To be done at Lake Tahoe (TBD North or South shore).

September: NATIONAL EVENT. The gathering committed to put out the necessary efforts to facilitate a national event for the FD Association. If there will be attendees and a desire to sail in the West, we will put forth the efforts to put on a “National Event”. Whether it be the “Nationals”, the “North Americans”, or the “Pacific Coast Championships” we will undertake the efforts to make it happen in September 2004. The name of the event will be at the will of the US FD administration. To be done in San Francisco Bay (St. Francis Y.C. or San Francisco Y.C.).

October: NO FORMAL GATHERING.

November: NO FORMAL GATHERING.

December: NO FORMAL GATHERING.

Hope this gives you all some ideas as to what we could do this summer. We currently potentially have 6 boats sailing:

·       JJ’s new Mader boat (or his old Hoare boat until the new boat arrives).
·       Vlad’s Newport boat
·       Jason’s B+C boat
·       Dave’s Hoare boat
·       Greg’s Mader boat (Tahoe)
·       Zhenya’s Mader boat

Jordan Degan has a boat available, and so does Greg Pujol. If those 2 are interested to participate we might have 8 boats to bump into each other. Victor might be motivated to put a boat on the line too. Since JJ is trying to sell his boat, we might be able to get another sailor on line soon. That allows for the possibility of 10 boats. It is just a possibility now. But given some luck and good times, we might see that many boats some time this summer. Although, a modest 4 boat get together would be just great.

Now we need to get some preferences for dates within the months we have identified. By the beginning of the year, if no one has mentioned their preferences, I will propose straw dates. That is, we will post proposed dates that we can change. So please let me know your preferences by December 31^st.

Thanks to Diane for putting the effort together for the gathering.