Before I bought the Lightning in 2011 I had polled over 50 of my acquaintances
to see if they would like to sail and/or race with me. I received enough of a positive response so
that I went ahead with the purchase of the Lightning. A few of them actually
did go out with me the first year, but due to life and other reasons, not one
of the first people I asked ever went out with me in subsequent years. I knew that I was taking a risk in the
purchase of the boat and it was also an experiment to see if I could run a
multi-person boat campaign. If
successful, then maybe one day I would move up to the E-Scow. The E-scow takes
more crew and more money to buy and run a campaign. When I bought the boat I figured I would give
myself 3 to 5 years, basically the length of the loan on the boat, to see the
experiment through.
I have now owned the boat for 3 full seasons and have just started the 4th and I leaning toward this being the
end of the experiment. I would not
consider the experiment successful in terms of thinking I would ever own an
E-Scow. Towards the end of last season I
started to grow frustrated with racing the Lightning for both results and crew
reasons. The ability or lack thereof to
procure crew is a large reason many people quit sailing or change types of
sailboats or decide to only become crew.
I thought that I may have found a regular crew in Mike and Tab, but Mike
has not been able to be as consistent as originally thought by him or me. And
while Tab was excited at first to race, her enthusiasm has dropped and would
rather just pleasure cruise with me. She
does not like the tension of regatta racing or fully feel comfortable in racing
situations and she also finds the boat very physically uncomfortable. Tab and I both enjoy sailing together, but
racing together has not been as much fun as we hoped.
This past weekend we sailed in the Lightning Champagne/District Championship
regatta. It was also combined with a classic Lightning regatta. We had 14 district boats and 10 classic boats
out on the course racing. The regatta
itself went well, but from a sailing standpoint it was a disaster for me. We finished second to last in the regatta and
did not have a fun time. It was cool
watching the classics race, though. I
had the second oldest boat that was not considered a classic and there was only
one other of the same vintage Lightning as mine. The boat behind us was a late 80s model
(mines a 96) and owned by someone just happy to be out there. The boat that is a similar vintage finished
just in front of me. If I am going to own a racing sailboat I am not going to
be happy just to be out there. I am not
able to constantly afford new sails and though I could possible upgrade the
boat, I am not convinced that it would help my results that much. Newer sails
would be a short lived upgrade as you constantly need to keep replacing them as
they age. This past weekend was the straw that maybe not broken the camel, but
has made me think of the next steps with the experiment.
So what to do?
We could keep the boat and only sail it in
the local fleet and not worry about results and not sail in regattas. We could
sell the boat and replace it with a boat for cruising around the lake. The MC
would be my racing boat and maybe I would crew on a Lightning or an E-Scow. Or
we could just sell it and not replace it. For now I think we will finish out
the season and make a decision then.
Thinking of selling the Lightning makes me a
little sad. I still feel like I have unfinished business with the boat and it
has brought me pleasure. Mostly from cruising then racing, but there has been
good times racing. Thinking of purchasing a sailboat for cruising the lake
makes me excited. How much that excitement would last is a good question. Lets
see how the rest of the season goes out on the water.
No comments:
Post a Comment