From Michael Stratton:

Mother Nature pulled up to the pump and got a half tank of low octane fuel for this past weekend and by Sunday it was gone. 

The Indianapolis Sailing Club's Hoosier Crossroads Sunfish Regatta, its first ever, was the unlucky recipient of this power shortage, despite the best efforts of a great host club. 

The 3-4 mph wind on Saturday produced three very slow races, something we experience sometimes at our home club, and all of them were over fifty minutes long. Despite those conditions, the 24 boat fleet gamely came to the start and faced the competition and the wind shortage. Few clubs would race in such wind (HSA included) and no world qualifying event would even send boats out, but this event was determined to sail.

HSA was well represented with four racing sailors making the trip. Dom Everaet, Bob Fletcher, and David Parrott along with Yours Truly showed up to face some of the Midwest's top Sunfish racing sailors. 

In race one, our own Dom Everaet got off the line well and reached the windward mark ahead of Wisconsin's Mark Kastel, the regatta winner, and Chicago Lake Bluff's Rich Chapman. Dom would eventually be overtaken by the two champion sailors but hung with them for a close third. Yours Truly finished right behind those three. "Race one was super exciting," Dom said later. Dom had to try and stay with Kastel and Chapman as well as guard against being overtaken by the twenty one boats behind him. 
 

In the final tally after three races, the Lake Bluff group took the 2nd through 4th spots as Chapman, Scott Schappe, and Gretchen Seymour crossed before the lone Indy sailor in the top ten, Steve Stucky. Stucky was followed by Louisville friend Joe Collins in 6th after Joe lost the 5th place tiebreaker as both finished with 18 points. One back at 19 was Yours Truly followed by Dom at 22 points in 8th place. 

David Parrott showed that he was regatta ready in his first Sunfish contest away from home and scored three tenth place finishes to end up with 30 points and tenth place overall in a very consistent performance in the top half of the fleet. Bob Fletcher was in 16th place ahead of a large group of sailors from the home club as well as a couple of veterans from other clubs. 

The regatta participants went out on the water Sunday morning hoping for more racing but had to paddle pack in when the wind failed to show up. Also in attendance were HSA friends from other lakes and rivers: Gail Turluck Mullett (Gull Lake),Tom Katterheinrich (Lake St. Marys), and Eugene Cox (Louisville). 

The Indy venue at Geist Reservoir is a beautiful location with many large homes around  a 1,900 acre lake with twenty miles of shoreline.