The 2014 Lake Weir Invitational and 10th Annual Harpoon Nationals Regatta was a wonderful success!  

The new venue at Carney Island Park had us all anticipating curious contrasts to tradition.  The early morning fog had us all guessing ... and the wind .... she was elusive and tantalizing.  But, we did eek out four races to muster new champions.  We ended up having 4 classes which allowed for a plethora of beautiful stained-glass trophies to be handed out to deserving sailors.  Competitors came to join with us from the surrounding lakes and locations from Tampa to Illinois...and of course …Jamaica.  Our Commodore in charge of the Regatta, Bob Cole, will have a lot more to say about the racing results in this newsletter.

The many hundreds of photos that are available from this last weekend really help you appreciate all the effort and enthusiasm wrapped up in an event like this.  Be sure to check them out on the links that Jan Schumacher has created to allow for easy access and viewing:

Ocala Star Banner (Doug Engle):  http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Dato=20140428&Kategori=NEWS01&Lopenr=428009996&Ref=PH&pl=1

Waypoint News (Ben Seay):  http://www.waypointnews.com/photos/osclakeweirinvitational.html 

Ocala Sailing Club Website:  http://www.ocalasailingclub.org/photo-gallery.html

Ocala Sailing Club Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.615312025219671.1073741827.149085348509010&

Flickr (Joan Bernat):  https://www.flickr.com/photos/kj4yla/sets/72157644416339292/

More photos will be posted to the Ocala Sailing Club Website and Facebook so be sure to go there to re-live this event. 

Also, please submit additional pictures that you have taken to share by sending them to Jan at:  janoschumacher@aol.com. 

We appreciate the many competitors that registered for this event, many from far away.  And our gratitude goes out in abundance to the dedicated folks that hosted dinners, prepared meals, provided safety and committee boats and helped out in so many ways to make the regatta the worthwhile event that it became.

April slips away and May floats in with her fresh promise of a new month and the threshold of a new year.  We will be holding our new Officer's Induction later in the month at a Sunday ceremony at Sims' Beach and our renewal of membership begins.  We also applaud the new members that have just joined in the last month and understand that we have some other prospective folks interested in being new members.

Ocala Sailing Club has participants in the upcoming annual Mug Race which is a 38 mile course on the St John's River from Palatka to Orange Park.  There are usually over a hundred boats that register for that race, so it will be exciting to see how our sailors do.  Ed Sims and crew won first in their class last year.  Good Luck, God Speed and may the fickle Goddess of Wind bless the day. 

Your Commodore,

Art Twitchell

The Lake Weir Invitational and Harpoon Regatta are now over and the participants have headed home with memories of an exciting weekend.  The regatta team did a great job of organizing, preparing and executing our plan.  I want to thank all of you for a job well done. 




We had four days of fun in the sun:

• Thursday’s Welcome Party at Skip & Lou Archibald’s
  
• Friday was a practice sailing day and a gathering at Gator Joe’s
  
• Saturday light wind racing and a fabulous dinner by Patti Moring and her team of Jan Cole and Sandra Harton.
  
• Sunday races, trophy presentations and suitable celebrations for those involved
  

The last activity was the clean up team, who gathered all of our regatta equipment and put it away for next time.  The volunteers who cleaned up the club house, committee boat and pavilion areas after our gathering and activities.  Finally all of the pictures of the racing, meals and good times with friends, which makes this all worthwhile for us to do again next year. 

Wishing you good winds and great sailing,

Bob Cole ~ Commodore of Vice

Greetings Fellow OSC Members,

The April Regatta gave a boost to our banking accounts with a current combined balance total of $3,696.21.

The Savings account gained six cents in interest totaling $1,105.42.

The Checking account balance shows $2,590.79 as of April 30, 2014, with a deposit of $1,656 from the weekend Regatta entry fees and lunches/dinners ($1,558), merchandise sales ($70), and 50/50 Raffle ($28) from the Saturday dinner.  There was an additional deposit of $37 from the 50/50 raffle from the Thursday night pre-Regatta dinner at Skip and Lou's. (Thanks again!)  We received the $200 beer and soda donation from sponsor Mike Miller as well.

For expense receipts received so far from Regatta related activities, we paid out $913.55 ($140.86 trophies; $772.69 food/tables).

Looking forward to May OSC activities!

Respectfully submitted,

Kathy Olbekson  Treasurer