Newsletters

Shell Lake Sailing Club Newsletter
2/20/06

Here we are again, looking forward to the summer months and spending a little more time with friends. I thought that I would get this newsletter out early, so we can mark our calendars with the Sailing Banquet and our 5 races. The Banquet this year will be at the Butternut Golf Course on June 3rd We had it there last year and had a very nice time. If you have never been out there, it is a large vaulted dining room overlooking the golf course and we should have the place pretty much to ourselves. Last year they had some wine set out that we could purchase by the bottle for the meal which worked out great.

The 5 races will be the two Regattas on July 1st and Labor Day Sunday, Sept. 3rd and the three Saturday Informal Races (SIR) on the second Saturday of the summer months, June 10th, July 8th and Aug. 12th. Mark your calendar and we look forward to see you on the water. This year I plan on leaving the markers out for the afternoon so people can set up and race around them as they wish. I am planning on running the races as a "Chase the Rabbit" type so I can be in them if I find new/used sails for the Scot. The first race will be the one that counts towards the Sailor of the Year award. If anyone is interested in starting any of our races from the committee boat, give me a call and I can explain what has to be done if you haven’t done it before.

The July 3rd Celebration is getting to be a great time with the Juried Art Show, that local artist David Hassig spearheaded last year. This year’s show will be on July 1st as will our Regatta. He has put in a lot of time on increasing this show to be one of the biggest and best in the area. It takes place in a beautiful setting overlooking the lake and that is why they wanted our Regatta to be a backdrop. We bought one mirror there last year and have gone back to the artist for two more. The Downtown Lakefront Committee is working hard on getting some great entertainment for the evening part of the Celebration.

If I don’t get another Newsletter out to you before the Banquet, we will start off with a cocktail hour at 6:30 PM, dinner at 7:00 PM. Following our dinner we will present our club awards for "Sailors of the Year", hand out some door prizes, have our meeting where we will discuss our upcoming events and anything else that needs hashing over and then sit back and enjoy our speaker of the evening, whose subject will be Sailing and should be very interesting.

Sailing Club Social Events

We would like to improve on these events, so if you have some ideas bring them to the Banquet. We will be having a wine tasting party again this year, brought back by popular demand. We may make a few changes to it, but only to make it a little bit better. I should have a date to give you at the Banquet. It will probably be at the Spooner Market and Grill again as Betsy did a great job the last 2 years.

Sailing Club "Sailor of the Year" awards.

The award for male "Sailor of the Year" goes to Nick Allen. There were 5 skippers that were in the running for this award and that is just great. As I mentioned before, you have to be in at least three out of the five races that we run to qualify for the award.

The award for female "Sailor of the Year" goes to Karen Flolid. We need more women to come out and sail and give Karen and Katie a little competition.

Broken Rudder Races

The CRAW (Catamaran Racing Association of Wisconsin) will be challenging the Catamaran Association of Minnesota in a series of races that will be held on July 29th and 30th. The prize that goes to the winning club is a traveling Broken Rudder and a lot of bragging rights. If you have a catamaran you can enter the races as some of our members did last year or you can volunteer as a crewmember. These are excellent races because the sailors are some of the best in the Midwest, so you should get out on the water and watch the action up close. I had a meeting with Kurt Korte, the CRAW Organizer, for this event this winter and he was wondering if the Shell Lake Sailing Club would like to join in and race along at the same time as they are racing maybe on a different course. I told him that they go pretty fast and I wasn't sure how any of our single hull racers would like to be out there at the same time. I told him that I would ask the members at our Banquet what they think. We will have almost 2 months before the race.

Boats for Sale

We have a number of sailboats for sale.

Dennis Christopherson has a 20-ft. Texas Marine cabin cruiser.
This can be seen at 1119 E. Lake Drive. I think that he wants $5000.00 and he can be reached at 715-468-7169 at the lake or in Amery at 715-268-2991.

Rod Kesti is putting Connie¹s sailboat up for sale. It is a 14-foot Holder, single hull, which was made by Hobie.

Steve Byrd is looking for someone to take over his share of the 18-foot Cat he has with Nick Allen and Steve's brother Bill. Check above to see that the boat won Sailor of the Year Award with Nick on it. You could be the skipper on it this year with Nick as the crew.

Karen Flolid is selling her 16 foot X Sailboat mfg. by Johnson Boat Works. She has won many Sailor of the Year Awards with this boat.

Friends of the Sailing Club

We want to start out thanking the Butternut Golf Course, as this is where we will be having our Banquet.

Thanks to Diane Ericksen of Thunder Gifts Gallery for her help and support in the past. She has retired as of the end of the year. I will be getting our awards made at the Potters Shed in Shell Lake so we welcome them to our Friends of the Sailing Club. The coffee shop is a great place to have that special cup of coffee and do a little bit of shopping at the
same time.

We can’t forget Doboy. They have been great, giving us permission to use their beach for all our events in the past and we will be using it again this year.

Events for the year

Just remember to mark your calendars with the following dates and give me a call on if you will be coming to the Banquet. They need a head count by May 21st. My phone in Shell Lake is 468-2294 or Email me at trsbadger@aol.com

• Banquet at Butternut Golf Course on June 3rd
• First SIR (Sat. informal race) June 10th at noon
• July 1st Celebration Sailing Regatta July 1st at noon
• Second SIR July 8th at noon
• Third SIR Aug 12th at noon
• Wine tasting Aug 30th
• Shell Lake Town & Country Days Sailing Regatta Sept 4th at 2:00 PM
• Sail Around the Island TBA at the banquet

Just a little note to remind you that with the dues at only $5.00 a year it is important to make sure you are up to date so we have enough money to take care of Business. I spend money on mailings, "Sailor of The Year awards, door prizes for the banquet and maybe a few dollars on the Wine Tasting Party. I don’t like to nag but if you have a small notice on the back of the envelope, it means you aren¹t paid up for 2006, so please help us out.

Thanks, Tom