Dave Tulk on a screaming broad reach after a squall hit during his lesson.

We had an excellent Tuesday Night Race Team Practice with Maura Dewey joining us for the first time this season to share her expertise and keep a good coach-to-athlete ratio as our group grows.  On the first Tuesday we had 9 lasers show up, the second Tuesday we had 10 Lasers and this past Tuesday we had 13 and we were missing some regulars!

I missed my goal of getting the blog published before Tuesday practice, because of a series of problems with uploading this week's YouTube video.  It was not relevant to this week's theme of down-speed boat handling skills, but it was coming in reply to requests for a video similar to the tacking video that provides a skill breakdown for gybing.  After another failed attempt at uploading, it will have to come later as a separate blog post.

Today, Thursday, May 17th, we have the first Thursday Night Racing.  Maura and I will both be racing so come out and challenge the coaches!

This weekend May 19th and 20th is the third and final May Training Weekend before the Icebreaker starts off Alberta's Regatta season.  Once again the Saturday coaching roster will be John R, Krsysztof M and Ian E and Sunday Krsysztof and myself will be doing the coaching.

In Saskatchewan this weekend, the Dick Degner Grand Prix starts off with the exciting Wascana Short Course on Wascana Lake, directly outside of the Legislature in Regina.  In the past, I have been to Wascana Short Course  and there was good wind and an audience of park bench sitters and Saturday walkers with "wow sailing is cool" expressions on their faces.  The next day there was an article about the regatta in the Regina Newspaper.  So if you aren't soaking up the training time on Chestermere, you had better be racking up Dick Degner Grand Prix points in Regina.

I hope I see you on the water!
Ian