TELL TALES 36 (July 30, 2008)

• Birthdays: Jackie Sims, a certified instructor who sails in our Portsmouth Division occasionally, will celebrate her birthday Saturday. We well remember her 12th birthday in 2002 because that was the day she won the nationals in Green Fleet at the Sarasota Sailing Squadron. Marissa Phillips' birthday will be Monday. Then we don't have another until Sept. 29 Ð Tyler Thorpe.

• Summer series: Standings have become a little confusing because some of our sailors are competing in different fleets. During the school year, Paul Kreider and Tyler Thorpe moved up to Portsmouth, but occasionally raced in Optimists and could not be scored for either series. A few weeks ago, Chloe Dietrich advanced to Portsmouth and while she is doing very well, she can not be ranked in that division this summer. Then last Saturday, Alicia Muscato sailed a 420 with Marissa Phillips. They placed second to Chloe, but Alicia has to be scored as a DNS (did not start) for the RWB Fleet. We can not assign regatta points because those are reserved for skippers who actually go to regattas elsewhere. Alicia still is in second place for the summer.

• Standings after eight weeks: RWB Ð 1, Cara Patete, 28; 2, Alicia Muscato, 32; 3, Stephan VerHulse, 32; 4, Garrett Lawlor, 33; 5, Aubrey Khachetoorian, 47; 6, Ashlyn Weed, 50; 7, Evan Langer, 56; 8, Stefan Johnson, 57; 9, Sami Tornese, 58; 10, Andrew Sosa, 62. Bryan White is the only Portsmouth sailor to have raced in half of the races so far and is, therefore, in first place.

• Schedule: This coming Saturday will be the last of the summer series and sailing will start at 9 a.m. since we do not have any more parent orientations. Our final Learn to Sail classes will end on Friday, Aug. 8, and on Saturday, Aug. 9, we will have boat assignments and Be Kind to Your Boat day. This includes cleaning your boat and changing sails. It will also be the first day for the new Ernest Green Fleet and we expect you 'old' hands to aid and abet our new members.

• Green Fleet: We had eight in the first advance session and 17 in the second class. Therefore, we hope to have a big new group. Our goal is 15 and they will have a special Green Fleet training session Monday through Friday, Aug. 11-15. This is something that we used to do and are resuming to give our neophyte skippers a good shot at winning some hardware at the Labor Day Regatta in Sarasota, which is scheduled for Aug. 30-31. Bryan White will be the instructor.

• New hours: Starting on Saturday, Aug.16, the Green Fleet (under Coach Robert Berg) will sail from 8 a.m. to 12 noon, as usual. However, the Red, White and Blue Fleet (under Capt. John Thomas) will be here from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Our Portsmouth Division (under Capt. John and Coach Robert) will practice from 1 to 5 p.m. Optional sailing will remain from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

• Ship over: In the Navy, we called it 'shipping over' when a person re-enlists to continue serving. Thus, we need to know from our current 'crew' who wants to ship over who does not. This is primarily for boat assignment purposes, and the deadline is Friday, Aug. 8. For example, we already know that Jonathan James along with Mallory and Marissa Phillips have opted not to re-enlist. We shall miss them and wish all three smooth sailing. They are welcome back any time.

• Annual dinner: This festive occasion is scheduled to be held at the Venice Yacht Club on Saturday, Aug. 23, beginning at 6 p.m. That will be after the boat load for the Labor Day Regatta.

• We finished the summer sessions with 81 beginners, including one who took it twice. This was a 29 per cent increase over last year, but two short of the 83 we had in 2006. Capacity is 96. Maybe we can fill up our sessions next year and even have a waiting list as we had in the past.