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WOODLAWN SAILING CLUB SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS |
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50th Annual Fiesta Regatta April 23, 2005 With the day starting off with a perfect weather forecast of Temps in the 70’s and winds forecasted for 10-20mph out of the North. You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day for this annual event. The always dependable load-in and set-up crew of the Woodlawn Sailing Club (see credits below) always on time at 8 AM getting the job done by 11 AM and ready for the sailors. As boats started to roll in it was apparent that the word of this event had gotten out, with some racers showing up that we haven’t seen in years. To my surprise even (Little) Will Rotzler, son of Willy Rotlzer one of the original members from the 50’s and builder of the present day WSC clubhouse, came rolling up with a Sunfish. This really made me feel old because the last time I raced against Little Will was 40 years ago in the clubs junior races. Little Will was 10 and I was 6. I still have that trophy in my house, and Will and I still remember that day. Also rolling up in the parking lot was the Zars brothers, Keith and Gary, long time members of the club along with their father Lief Zars. Brownie Horner, son of Bubba Horner and also a builder of the clubhouse in the late 50’s showed up for the Fiesta experience. Vickie Stone from Austin came down, we haven’t seen her in years since she raced on the Sunfish circuit. She said as I met her in the parking lot that after being to so many previous Fiesta Regattas she just couldn’t miss this one. We had brand new entries this year as well as the Clubs regulars. With the clubhouse ready and the race course prepared, it was time to get started. Skippers Meeting was called and Club R/C Sailor John Oliveira was introduced as the Race Director for the day with his helper and fellow R/C sailor and WSC webmaster Eric Gregory gave the breakdown of the Gold and Silver Fleet. John also announced that all 15 boats would have one start with the Gold Fleet sailors sailing extra legs of the course. After the skippers meeting the two were ready to man the rescue boat and start some races. Three races were run before lunch with the winds sometimes building to just below whitecaps and seeing 15 Sunfish out on the race course was quite a sight for the armchair skippers on the patio. Lunch was called at around 1:45pm and the feast of shiskabobs, cassadeia, salad and Spanish rice and beans were well accepted and perfect for Fiesta. Fiesta food is what needs to be eaten this week anyway. With several club members all pitching in with their own dishes and desserts, having enough food was not a problem. Like we say here at Woodlawn, no one will ever go home hungry! As lunch was over and racing ready to get back going, our ever clever Race Committee of John and Eric knew that the quick way to get everyone back in their boats and out on the race course was to just get themselves anchored out on the starting line and throw the Yellow Class flag up. This got everyone including myself and a few others running to their boats and back out on the race course. Later to find out it was all just a trick to see lazy skippers run to their boats. Well it worked! Five (5) more races were run before 5 PM giving everyone 8 races counted with 2 throw outs for the final results (see below). Before trophies were to be handed out we had our Raffle. Many of the nautical Raffle items including a few shirts from past events were donated by the club members. The usual duo of Tony Seta and Robert McGonigle had their usual fun pulling tickets and announcing the winners. Time for the racers trophies and after I was able to Thank all who had helped and attended I was able to hand it over to the Race Director for the day and let him do the honors. This years Trophies were constructed by Rick and Valerie Elliot. They had out done themselves, by keeping with our Clubs new tile mosaic art work on the North wall of the clubhouse, and created beautiful broken tile pieces of their own depicting 3 Sunfish and the lighthouse with their design. Rick wasn’t lucky enough to actually be in the money for the top spots but earned himself the coveted “Special Finisher” trophy for finishing every race with the highest point’s total. It was only between races that he fell in the lake to even get more attention and laughs from the patio crowd. Everyone thought I had something to do with that given our long time rivalry of racing so many years. Below you will see all that were involved in the success of this event and there are not enough Thanks I can write or express to these people for the years of help they have given me and the club to continue to pull off such fun events. Gene and Rana Camargo did the initial planning/organizing for this event but was not able to attend because of a previous engagement, but thanks go to them for the great idea and the preparation of the lunch sausage and shrimp shiskabobs. As with all of our events now, our webmaster always seems to get info up on the clubs website faster than I can send it to all. With his new digital camera I know Eric is going to have some nice action photos of the day and this story will somewhere fit in. Just like a major production when you have good people working with ya, it always seems to get done when it needs to. Like I had mentioned above, what took almost 3 hours to set-up for the day only takes this crew an hour to break down and put away till the next event. Below are the folks that make this happen: Fiesta Regatta Backstage Crew:
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Mama Seta Thank You again - Ray Seta , Commodore ‘05 Use The Scroll Buttons At Either End Of The Thumbnail List To See All 167 Photos |
