Clubs & Fleets

QYC May Madness Laser Regatta Results

Yesterday’s May Madness Regatta at QYC was a great start to the Massachusetts’s 2009 Laser regatta season, great for me and a great overall regatta – 20 Lasers, a full range of wind conditions, an efficient well-run race committee, close competition, warm air and friendly people. I find it pretty hard to beat that.

For the last couple of years the Laser fleet at QYC has struggled to provide a club Laser that would give prospective Laser sailors a real sense of what sailing a good Laser feels like. By good, we meant we wanted the prospect to experience the easy to use “new” rigging. Our club Lasers are all pre-2000 vintage.

We put the docks in at the club today. It was cool and misty so we retired occasionally into the club house for warm-up breaks. A couple of times the conversations turned to the Laser fleet and how fast we were growing. As I listened to snatches of conversation I didn’t hear any other fleet being mentioned as often.

Take a look at the outline, under CLubs and Fleets, from our Learn to Race seminar. what can you add?

QYC is trying to encourage all our members to race and so this year we are holding a series of seminars to help new racers feel more comfortable coming out to play with us. Below is the tip sheet for the on-land seminar I'm running.

The tendency is to tell too much too fast, so we’re exploring what the fun minimum is. If you have ideas or experiences, share them with the rest of us. How have you increased participation in club racing?

Yesterday I went to the club to facilitate a new-rules discussion. The sun was out the lake was sparkling, wind sufferers were zipping around and I was inside being distracted by them. It would have been cold, but a fun day for the season’s first sail, but first things first.

There is a bit of an art to getting enough volunteers to do the necessary work to build a fleet or a club. The “wait until they volunteer” approach just doesn’t work, nor does the “post a notice and they will come.”

Think inertia, people at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. If the mass of the person’s reluctance is large enough, then a small force won’t work. But, when it comes to volunteers, you want inertia to succumb to motion in your direction and for that motion to be sustained, the larger force can’t be negative or alienating.

The QYC Laser fleet added a number of new members this past year and we are planning activities for this winter and spring to draw additional attention to QYC and what a great venue it is for Laser sailing.

Participants at both our May Madness Regatta and the Last Blast Regatta in October have raved about our club and our lake, and each year we have attracted new members from the 15 to 20 entrants per regatta. The QYC Laser fleet is the only greater Boston summer Laser fleet (There is a frostbite fleet in Winthrop.), so we are in a great position to build a more robust fleet.