Keelboat Racing on Lake Harriet

 
One of the things that has been hard to do in a keelboat on Lake Harriet is race. That's really a shame, because even if your primary style of sailing is cruising, it is fun and instructive to join a race sometimes and see what you and your boat can do. Even if you are not in it for the winning, racing sharpens your crew teamwork, sail trimming, and dealing with Right-of-Way. The Lake Harriet Yacht club sanctions races for MC and M16 scows, but has no class racing for bigger boats. This winter I set out to see what the actual situation is on both Lake Harriet and Calhoun, having discussions with both yacht clubs. Here's an update.

On Lake Harriet, unbeknown to me, the yacht club's Wednesday night race is an 'open' race. This means any boat can show up and start. The great part about this is that you do not need to be a member of the club, so it is a great way to get started in racing. The down side is that the racing is mass start, and first to finish. The works fine in one-design fleets, but not in keelboats, where you would typically expect a handicap system like PHRF or Portsmouth ToT to equalize the results between differently performing boat designs.
That was last year. This year the LHYC is looking to add a handicap system to the Wednesday night racing. This would be a great addition to our sailing on Harriet if they do. They plan to have a table at the buoy-draw meeting in April, so be sure to stop by and voice your support.

Over on Lake Calhoun, the LCYC actually started handicapped keelboat racing last year, with a full series that raced on the weekends, just like the scow classes. See their site HERE.  They have invited Lake Harriet boats to make the trip over to Calhoun to race in the Aquatennial  race. That sounds like a lot of fun, but also a lot of boat hauling. Maybe we can take over one boat, and get 4 guys to help that haul and then crew. In any case, we are trying to plan a Lake Harriet/Calhoun social event for keelboaters to get people talking. Stay tuned, and voice your support here for any part of this that sounds fun!


Comments

  1. John Hovde, LHYCMay 24, 2010 at 9:29 PM

    Keel Boat Racing on Harriet? I have been in contact with Tom Wiegle of CYC who organized the keel boat racing on Calhoun. I'm thinking of organizing a similar trial keel boat race on Harriet this summer to test out the interest. The LHYC members have a great deal of racing experience that we can share. (One of our members, Bill Colborn,is nationally ranked among Scow Sailors.) I'm thinking about a Saturday morning in July, around 10:00 am having a short on shore talk about racing rules and concepts for safety, then set up a course for a couple short races. There are 9 Victoria 18's on our lake and some of their owners are interested. Anyone interested let me know at fishhov@msn.com or stop by the shed on Saturday before our race. I think a line of keel boats on Harriet would be beautiful. If enough keel boats showed up on Wednesday evenings to race we would have a separate start.

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  2. clayMay 24, 2010 at 11:56 PM

    John,

    I think this would be great, and a great way to get LH keelboaters into the fold. I have been crewing over at Lake Calhoun, and frankly I think we could have a MUCH better series here. The fleet of V18 is one, and we also have at least four boats in the 23-23 foot range that also PHRF around 200, +/- 15. That would be a great start as well. I'm in totally. We should coordinate with the LCYC to make sure we do not race on the same day. I know I could get a racing crew swap started.

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