Amen!
There are some great memories bouncing around in my grey cells of days and nights spent on the Chesapeake Bay. My best buddy Steve and I would head out and get almost lost, and when one of us asked the other "what day is it?" we knew we had arrived. But that steady wind speed and direction sure spoils a lake sailor. We did kind of a neat activity a week ago Saturday on Smith Mt. Lake in Virginia - we called it a "Wild Goose Race (Chase)", and it turned out to be a lot of fun, especially for the folks who don't normally race. It was "Celebrate the Lake Day", so there were all sorts of various activities all over the lake, but we were able to do our event at one end where the traffic and chop wasn't so bad. Rain was forecast, but we got lucky and had partly cloudy instead. We did a regular start, though it was a little more ragged than most since many of the boats/crews were not regular racers. Then, once the boats have gone an arbitrary distance (we used a couple of hundred yards), the leader is noted, as is the time. If he leads for 5 min continuous, he has to turn and go to the back of the pack and start over, and a new leader emerges (with time restarting, of course). This process continues all the way down the course, so that no one leads more than 5 minutes and many boats have a chance to lead. After a while, some of the skippers figured that if they turned back early they didn't have to go all the way back, so the lead was changing more often. The boats didn't get strung out too badly, and everyone had a good time. We even gave out "Wild Goose" burgees for them to fly and keep as souvenirs. I suggest this activity as a great way to do a semi-race with folks who are a little hesitant about hard core racing - it gives them some experience sailing in relatively close quarters, no one is left behind, the emphasis is on not running into other boats, and anyone can win.
