Regattas - Rochester Yacht Club

Over the past 12 years since this fleet began, a wonderl’ulcamaraderie has developed among its skippers and crew. In theearly years of this fleet, Dave Fingar, owner/skipper of Kemah(our first C&C 35 MK III fleet captain) was instrumental inpromoting outstanding "Esprit D’Corps" for this fleet. Offtherace course, the C&C 35 MK Ill has proven to be a popularfamily cruiser. As a result of this dual racer/family cruiserfunctionality, great competition and camaraderie, the fleet hasgrown quickly and remained active.Bottom line, this fleet has fun with family and friends doingwhat they enjoy most -sailing!The original ownedskippers are shown in the adjacentpicture just coming off the race course.RACE MANAGEMENTAs the race management chairperson ill 1978, TarryPolidor’s ilnprovements included revamping the sailinginstructions into the detailed book format that we still use today.For many years, the olympic circle marks were set byanchor. Quite often the tam’ks would drift far froln the originallocation or would be lnissing altogethel:. To make the lnarks morepermanent, Tarry’s idea of filling a tire with concrete and the endof a cable line and securing the other end of the cable to the mark In John’s first year, RYC hosted the Wornen’s Nationalsworked well. In fact, it was the way the olympic circle marks and the Women’s World Championship. For these events, awere made fi’Oln that point on.USYRU prot’essional race management team was brought inTarry ran many of the races, and also had several assistants to manage the regattas. John and his crew watched andto help. Once his year was up, luckily, Jolm Hayt’ord, a Star learned how this professional team worked. What thesailor; decided to accept the race management chairperson USYRU team did was truly innowttive at the tilne. Everyposition in 1979. John was COlnpensated with a flee club course was set and plotted on chart paper, each member hadmembership and four dollars for each race. John had learned a specific role, and everything was crisp and sharp.how to manage races by working with Dick Kemp, reading from This prol)ssional race management team had such athe race management handbook and other articles, and profound effect on John and the "All Kid Crew" that it set theunderstanding the needs of the sailors being an experienced racer stage for change in race management at RYC. Many difl’erenthilnself,ideas were discussed, but eliminating the olympic circle andOne of the m’eas John excelled in was creating a team climate setting all courses seemed to be the most prominent one.by bringing on kids from the Club and the local high school. Chip To give RYC sailors a taste of the "new" race committee,Evaul who was hired to help out during a large J 24 event in on Sundays, courses were set using buoys. Because it was an1979 dubbed this team the "All Kid Crew." John enjoyed this experiment, the sailing instructions didn’t include this type ofyoung group and gave them many responsibilities from fixing and racing format. So, the race officer would describe what course ....cleaning boats to runnillg their own courses and using firearms, they were setting over the VHF radio before each race. ManyIt wasn’t all play though. After working about a yem" in the sailors appeared to like this new change. However, because ofold RYC Race Colnlnittee Boat, the Club purchased a newly some opposition, it would be another 10 years betk)re RYCrenovated, seaworthy lobster boat, eventually named the would completely eliminate the olympic circle {"George Newell." It was a welcome addition to the raceBecause of the changing atnaosphere and the increasedcommittee. Jolm recalls that the boat even came with radar, intensity of racing, two distinct positions began to ew)lve andHowever, it was used only once because it had such a draw on are still around today. The first is the race managementthe battery that they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to start chairperson, which changed into a volunteer position. Thisthe boat and get back into shore,person has many different tasks such as preparing budgets,118