2010 Lightning Texas Districts

The plan to make the 2010 Texas Districts took an exciting turn in St. Pete during the Southern Circuit.  My boat was doubled decked with Aroldo de Rienzo's and off they went to Texas.  The event was a month away and Matt Patterson agreed to take care of the boats and get them to Houston...perfect plan as I had agreed to attend the event and run a Lightning Lab on behalf of the ILCA. 

Fast forward to April 23, where several teams got together for a day of learning at the Lightning Lab.  We had a detailed tuning talk as we waited for the skies to clear.  After lunch, we hit the water and did some long upwind work to check everyone's tune.  After that, we ran some short course races to focus in on speed and timing.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and throughout the day we saw great improvement.  Ian Edwards with the help of John Womble and Clarke Newman coordinated the event.  As we made our way to the dock, the Texas A&M sailing team showed up for some Lightning sailing, which they were treated to great breeze!  It was really cool to see so many young sailors come back to the dock with smiles on their faces!

The Texas District was an open event and kicked off the 2010 Southwestern Circuit, which includes regattas throughout Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama & Florida.  With a growing following, this circuit promises to offer up some great competition, but even better camaraderie!  

Three races were sailed on Saturday in a really nice (and puffy) NWerly.  My team consisting of my wife Laurie and our good friend Kirsten Medwid had a great day of sailing.  The boat and sails set up really nice and we won every race.  The racing was quite tight all day.  The starting line was tight, which made for exciting starts and with the shifts, it was tough to stay off the line.  We were OCS in the last race, but managed to put together a nice set of shifts.  Capsizes and missed OCS calls mixed up the standings enough to make the racing super tight on points.  Larry Frost and his team from New Orleans showed good course management all day and sailed a strong 3 races...unfortunately they carried an OCS in this no-throwout series.  Aroldo's team of Pablos and Tommy Meric (sportin' his brand new Dieball Sailing sails) both showed great pace and the stage was set for an exciting 2nd day for Sunday.

Dieball Sailing was proud to sponsor the Saturday Bar-B-Que.  The food, as always at Houston Yacht Club, was great.  The stories of racing Lightnings in Texas over the years was fun to hear.  Kelly Gough, past World Champ crew, offered some great memories of not only Lightning sailing, but sailing with yours truly.  Good times, for sure.

Sunday's racing was in a similar breeze; puffy from the West, going NW.  Though not nearly as on-the-edge, the racing was very tight.  Larry Frost dominated the 1st race.  He caught the first shift off the line and never looked back.  Our team managed to pass some boats throughout the race to pull into a 2nd, which pretty much sealed the regatta.  Tommy, Aroldo, Clark and John Womble all were in the mix as was Buccaneer's Bob Bernhardt.  It was really tight racing and fun!

The last race was a nail biter between Larry Frost, Tommy Meric, Clarke Newman, Aroldo & my team.  Aroldo had a great lead on the 1st leg, but got jumped by Larry on the 1st run.  We were in 4th and managed to get by both Tommy and Aroldo on the 2nd beat.  We then slowly engaged Larry and snapped a few shifts together to get by him at the last top mark.  It was really fun sailing and the entire top 7 were right there all regatta. 

Thanks and congrats to all the sailors who traveled to Houston.  Ian Edwards did a great job organizing.  John & Clarke had the communication wired and everyone made the weekend fun and easy.  We had a ball.

Congrats to Dieball Sailing!  Our sails finished 1,2,4 in the Open Division and 1st in the Texas District Division!  Congrats to Aroldo, Pablo & Pablo on their win!