New London 2015 – 11 races

Reservoir Rendezvous 2015Above racing friends gather round having a cool one after Saturdays racing as Carl preps the grill.

Results PDF   2015fleetNLR      2015overallNLR

Early Friday comers were greeted with 10-20 with some higher puffs Friday afternoon making for a great tune up day.   Those that had them were out on short boards and those that didn’t got more tuned up for the weekend races.   Several locals showed up for an afternoon of short boarding.  Course designer Eric Rahnenfuehrer got the marks  set Friday afternoon in an  ABC triangle with start and finish near the beach launch area.  The wind held to the southwest for a nice long upwind from the start line all weekend.

The wind and weather was great though a bit warm on Sunday there was nice steady light breezes just made for long board racing.   Four races were ran Saturday before lunch and three afterwards.  Sunday morning the breeze was even better and four more races got in between ten and noon.   Wow 11 races, we were spent as the wind came up a bit tempting some to do a few more runs.  Start man Mark Ulicki kept things rolling with a five minute next start from the last finisher.    Hosts and cooks Carl and Laurie Rappaport with Allyson Bigelow kept the food coming with lunch, Saturday evening cookout, Sunday morning breakfast and another lunch after Sundays racing.    Scott Haas tallied up the scores and an quick awards and wrap up  meeting happened about 1 concluding a successful event.

Dominating once again were Mark Drotleff from Columbus Ohio racing an Mistral Equipe II with Aerotech VMG 7.5.   Behind and sometimes ahead of him was Gordon Bittle also from Columbus riding an original Mistral Superlight with his Mistral Prodigy one design 8.5 sail.   Eric Rahnenfuehere placing third in several races was riding his Bic Bomba modified with two large foils on the bottom.  The remaining competitors were often finishing close together making for some excitement at the finish line.   Coming farthest to attend this year was Tom Stokes from Michigan City Indiana.

So I haven’t mentioned the non-racing crowd which once again outnumbered the racers.   There was at least 20 some other people there doing some windsurfing on Saturday.   With kids and spouses and dogs it was a great crowd.  Sunday afternoon after the races a group of a dozen teens showed up for the learn how clinic the Cleveland gang there does.  They keep a flotilla of wide leaner boards and shorts sails there in a trailer.