DUFF STUFF-Personal reports now & then from my perch on the EYC Race Committee-Bob Duff

MAKE AN OFFER TO BUY MY HOUSE

2011-07-05T10:01:00.007-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

This is an invitation to contact me about purchasing my home in Marblehead MA. I will entertain questions upon e-mail application to:

Robert O. Duff, Jr.

rduff19@comcast.net

This is an ariel view of the house:

That driveway has subsequently been repaved completely for parking cars (in addition to two in the garage) or a sailboat or two if that pleases you.

To be a little unorthodox, let's start from the 812 gross square foot cellar ( net est.. 400 Sq.Ft.) with level "walk-in" access from that driveay if you should be interested in "Cottage Industry" space with three large glassed windows for sunlight and ventilation--a workbench (18'x3'), headroom over 6'3" and an antique marble sink needing installation. Here is an inside view:

WONDERFUL THINGS MAY HAPPEN NEXT 4TH OF JULY!

2010-06-27T18:52:00.027-04:00

I did not intend starting this blog "page" just this way, but this free Google Blogger software has a way of doing some funny things now and then. I had planned to start with a report on the race committee crews who performed beautifully June 19th and 26th. That is still here despite unexpected events for scheduling systems.

Wow! Look what IT just did centering these two lines!

However, here I am working around a picture from the 70s of IOD #16 TANGO with Thornton Clark at the helm of his yacht. That is Phil Somerby (now deceased), my ex-wife Deborah and me smiling for an unknown cameraman. Fortunately for me, he gave us a copy as shown here. We four people raced together for, I think, fourteen years before moving on to other things. In that brief time we

went all over to race inIOD events--Bermuda, Maine, San Franciso, Long Island Sound New york and Edinburgh Scotland without ever winning the IOD Worlds Championship. Not a bad life. Further down you will read my "excuse" for showing a picture of this beautiful racing yacht with reference to the 4th of July.

Here was our race committee crew for this recent June 19, 2010. We were on the TINKERS line with Vipers, Sonars and Rhodes 19 s. No J-24 s came out "to play", but we had fun with three races each for Vipers and Sonars. Two races were enough for the Rhodes.

*06/19-Sat-MRA#1 Day 3of4 ```````````` C/E/BYC 1000hrs**
Race	Person	Position	Availability
	Byrne, Cheryl	MARK Boat	Available
	Cochrane, Jack	PRO	Available
	Duff, Bob	Signaler	Available
*06/19-Sat-MRA#1 Day 3of4 ```````````` C/E/BYC 1000hrs**	Jeffries, Stephen		Not Available
	Marvin, Bradford	Timer	Available
	Schneider, Susie Oliver	Recorder	Available
	Shea, Kevin	MARK Boat	Available
	Smith, Liz Blodgett	PIN Boat	Available
	Smith, Tori	ETO Guest/Trainee	Available
	Soule, David	PIN Boat	Available
	Twombly, Chris	MARK Boat	Available

We then proceeded for a relatively quiet day on the BRIMBLES with only a few TOWN Class boats showing up to race--no Lasers. The wind dropped during the one long race giving PRO Jim McCully cause to worry about "time limit". They all made it okay. We towed everybody into the harbor mouth where the the typical "Harbor Hurricane" or "Mooring Breeze" was howling after the flat calm for towing.

Here was the RC crew for June 26th:

*06/26-Sat-MRA#1 Day 4of4 ``````````````` B/C/EYC-1000hrs**
Race	Person	Position	Availability
	Boyle, Ashley	Any Job	Available
*06/26-Sat-MRA#1 Day 4of4 ``````````````` B/C/EYC-1000hrs**	Duff, Bob	Signaler	Available
	Goedkoop, Kristen	Recorder	Available
	Ianchulev, Kaki	Any Job	Available
	Jeffries, Stephen		Not Available
	Marvin, Bradford	Timer	Available
	McCully, Jim	PRO	Available
	Schneider, Susie Oliver	PIN Boat	Available
	Wilkinson, Greg	PIN Boat	Available

You will note that Stephen Jeffries is listed as "Not Available" for both days. Steve suffered a rather serious leg break from spring skiing. He has registered this way for much of the season, but we hope to have Steve back with us soon on the race committee team.

Anticipating two race days this coming weekend, we were planning to report these needs when the GOOGLE DOCs system we used all year was deemed "TEMPORARY' and replaced by a clone to which I have no access. That is sad in one sense and delightful in another. I was growing tired of attempts to present data without support from committee management. Schedule assignments were not posted after verbal decisions. To date no files detailing people and assignments were published by the EYC Race Committee and the only directions I ever got repeatedly were to not publish from the address data in the system.

So, the abruptly announced "NEW" system is a clone of the original one. I have no involvement in its continuation and hope for the best.

I hope to see you out there with us soon.

Bob Duff

1.781.631.0033

rduff19@comcast.net

SUDDENLY IT's YACHT RACING SEASON AGAIN FOR EYC RACE COMMITTEE

2010-06-17T17:51:00.050-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

I am back here again for this 2010 sailing season! The focus will be THE PEOPLE WHO SERVE ON THE WATER FOR THE EASTERN YACHT CLUB RACE COMMITTEE. We invite you to come out with us. How to proceed to that end/beginning is described herein. You can always call me, Bob Duff at 1.781.631.0033 for questions/hints.

Each race day needs 10 or more race crew people with a variety of skills out on the water. BEGINNERS ARE WELCOME TO VOLUNTEER. We have fun, but recruiting people to sign-up for race jobs seems a major challenge.

Some new things are in place to, hopefully, improve on past procedures and spread recruiting tasks to people other than the Chairman of the Race Committee. I will describe some of these below.

We did several race days earlier with the following race days to do this 2010 season:

06/19-Sat-MRA#1 Day 3of4 @ TINKERS-Jack Cochrane as PRO

06/26-Sat-MRA#1 Day 40f4 @ BRIMBLES-Jim McCully as PRO

07/03-Sat-MRA#2 Day 1of4 @ MIDDLE-Jack Cochrane as PRO

07/04-Sun-EYC ANNUAL REGATTA-John Koopman as PRO

07/10-Sat-MRA#2 Day 2of4 @ TINKERS-Jim McCully as PRO

07/17-Sat-MRA#2 Day 3of4 @ TINKERS

07/19-Mon-JUNIOR RACE WEEK 1of3-Toby Reiley as PRO

07/20-Tue-JUNIOR RACE WEEK 2of3-Toby Reiley as PRO

07/21-Wed-JUNIOR RACE WEEK 3of3-Toby Reiley as PRO

07/22-Thu-NOOD Race Week 1of4 @ TINKERS (no BYC)

07/23-Fri-NOOD Race Week 2of4 @ TINKERS

07/24-Sat-NOOD Race Week 3of4 @ TINKERS

07/25-Sun-NOOD Race Week 4of4 @ TINKERS

07/31-Sat-MRA#2 Day 4of4 @MIDWAY

08/07-Sat-MRA#3 DAY 1of3 ONLY EYC

08/09-Mon-PYC Junior Olympics Day 1of2

08/10-Tue-PYC Junior Olympics Day 2of2

08/14-Sat-MRA#3 Day 2of3 @BRIMBLES

08/15-Sun-EYC CHANDLER HOVEY RACES-John Koopman as PRO

08/21-Sat-MRA#3 Day 3of3 -NO EYC shown at MIDWAY?

08/27-Fri-PHRF New England Championship Day 1of3-NO EYC

08/28-Sat-PHRF New England Championship Day 2of3

08/29-Sun-PHRF New England Championship Day 3of3

09/04-Sat-MRA#4 Labor Day Regatta Day 1of2 at Line 3

09/05-Sun-MRA#4 Labor Day Regatta Day 2of2 at Line 3

09/11-Sat-No EYC-MRA Fall One Design Day 1of 3 CYC No EYC

09/12-Sun-EYC-IODs-David J. Smith Trophy

09/18-Sat-MRA Fall One Design Day 2of3 ONLY EYC

09/24-Fri-EYC Sonar N.A. Championship Day 1of3

09/25-Sat-No EYC-MRA Fall One Design Day 2of3 CYC No EYC

09/25-Sat-EYC Sonar N.A. Championship Day 2of3

09/26-Sun-EYC Sonar N.A. Championship Day 3of3

Just for the record, we use three lines/areas for MRA: MIDDLE Line, TINKERS Line and BRIMBLES Line which are designated areas mostly out to sea. For NOOD Race Week the areas are called Outside, Halfway Rock and Tinkers. This year EYC will be at TINKERS for NOOD. For other events, we usually find an area out beyond the neck where we do not interfere with other club regattas.

MRA is the Marblehead Racing Association, a collaborative approach to keeping order. We do these many yacht races coordinated by MRA using committees and equipment from EASTERN, BOSTON and CORINTHIAN YACHT CLUBS. Pleon (PYC), Jubilee (JYC), Manchester (MYC) and Palmer's Cove (PCYC) participate in many events.

Further, PRO stands for Principal Race Officer: the person in charge who makes major decisions on the water to provide the best possible races for all the boats/people participating. A very good explanation of what PROs and committee members do is available on the EYC web WITHOUT PASSWORDS. This is buried along with a FORM for signing-up to experience a most interesting day on the water as follows:

sign on to easternyc.org HOME page
move cursor to touch “SAILING”
click “RACING” in the pop-down
click “Race Committee” buried with other things in the blue column on the left
select “Race Committee” pop-down to see options then:
click “Volunteer Schedule” (this is the FORM for sign-up)
then click “here” to really get to the FORM
or click “Join the Race Committee Team” ( the name of these two options is confusing)

Please take a look at #8 which is a good promotional piece. I feel that it should be available closer to readers rather than buried way down there on the web. The chance is small that an uninformed reader will find it buried down so low.

While there you might want to put "Join the Race Committee Team" into your "FAVORITES"

or "BOOKMARKS".

Then consider putting either/both of the following things there also.

For a look at how the EYC Sign-Up System works, click this YouTube presentation I modified for just this purpose. Click:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUiLbbjw1zM

Then if you are inspired to register for time with us on the water, fill out the FORM seen on YouTube (#6 above) by clicking:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dGRvOEViMWpOY0N4dTk0ZFBqNEFCWlE6MA

Soon after sign-up you will hear from us showing who plans to be there on the water with you

The schedule for this Saturday shows (as of Thursday pm) the need for two more crew but we could use four. Jack Cochrane is making phone calls as I write this! NOTE-DOUBLE CLICK TO THE RIGHT OF THIS LITTLE SPREADSHEET IF WRITING IS WHITE--A SOFTWARE BUG!

*06/19-Sat-MRA#1 Day 3of4 ```````````` C/E/BYC 1000hrs**
Race	Person	Position
	Byrne, Cheryl	Any Job
	Smith, Liz Blodgett	Any Job
	Soule, David	MARK Boat
	~	need mark2?
	~	need pin1?
	~	need pin2?
	~	need recorder?
	Cochrane, Jack	PRO
	Duff, Bob	Signaler
*06/19-Sat-MRA#1 Day 3of4 ```````````` C/E/BYC 1000hr**	Marvin, Bradford	Timer

Though not listed, Faxon Michaud is the EYC club employee who drives the ETO signal boat, sets/pulls anchors and fires cannon on direction of the PRO and Timer. Last year he was listed along with Rebecca Bennett for this very important job. The Chairman of our committee objected; so I removed them from the system. Our Dock Master Michael Smith schedules these people from the Doc Staff. Rebecca did the first several race daysthis spring and has moved on to other summer work. A new person will be joining us soon to rotate with Fax.

Last Sunday we ran a special Spring Regatta for high performance 505 racing machines. The scheduled Saturday racing did not happen due to the absence of wind. You can read a nice review of the ten boat series/four races on Sunday written by Greg Wilkinson in the regular Monday EYC Sailing News. I do not know its distribution. I tried copying and pasting Greg's report, but this Google blogger software goes crazy with the full page size. There may be a "trick", but I do not have it tonight.

Race committee was NOT OVERSTAFFED Sunday. We did okay using the automated horn for 3 minute dinghy starts. The wind was so light that we used a regular LINE START rather than the traditional 505 RABBIT START. Ask me about RABBITS if you are interested. I did my first series of RABBITS for the 505 North American Championship in 1985 where I drove the ''chase boat" which was quite enjoyable. That was on a big fresh water lake near Ogallala, Nebraska. I have helped with many others since then. Anyway, here was the very short handed crew for 505s on Sunday: NOTE-DOUBLE CLICK TO THE RIGHT OF THESE LITTLE SPREADSHEET IF WRITING IS WHITE--A SOFTWARE BUG!

06/13-Sun-EYC-505 SPRING `````` REGATTA 2of2 1000hrs
Race	Person	Position
	Sides, Richard	ETO Signal Boat
	Gring, Frank "Questie"	Mark/Pin
	Schneider, Susie Oliver	Mark/Pin
	McCully, Jim	Mark/Pin
	Brennan, Tom	PRO
	Duff, Bob	Timer

Going back in time, here is the nearly full crew for the 06/06 LAMBERT OCEAN RACE.

06/06-Sun-EYC-LAMBERT `````````` OCEAN RACE 0900hrs
Race	Person	Position
06/06-Sun-EYC-LAMBERT `````````` OCEAN RACE 0900hrs	Duff, Bob	Signaler
	Marvin, Bradford	Timer
	Koopman, John	PRO
	Sides, Richard	ETO Signal Boat
	Byrne, Cheryl	PIN Boat
	Ducharme. Sarah	UTILITY player
	Koopman, Fritz	MARK Boat

Since the LAMBERT is an EYC event, the results are posted on easternyc.org and (I think) nowhere else. I thought I could give you a direct link to results, but the only thing I can find on the site is the sailing instructions.

Good luck with your search. I personally find the EYC web very hard to navigate for things related to sailing. If you can find REGATTAS/RACING RESULTS you will find nothing posted about the LAMBERT. Another pop-down is so cluttered with undated races that I gave up trying to find the thing which brought me to sign-on.

A classic thing which never seems to get changed is the RACE COMMITTEE page which has little or nothing there of much interest. Then after gushing words about our FANTASTIC race committee, it says "Visit our Race Committee's page and learn about our all-star team!

". Please! Please! We are reading that suggestions right there ON THE RACE COMMITTEE PAGE!

For our MRA races, results are posted elsewhere in great detail by clicking:

http://www.mheadrace.org/

Copy and paste this http.... to your internet browser if the click does not work.

Jim Whipple does an outstanding job as MRA Scorer. It is a shame that MRA does not carry scores for the big club regattas like our LAMBERT, EYC ANNUAL, CHANDLER HOVEY and big events at the other clubs.

Going back further, we started the EYC 2010 season by running the Spring One-Design Regatta on Memorial Day weekend as follows: NOTE-DOUBLE CLICK TO THE RIGHT OF THIS LITTLE SPREADSHEET IF WRITING IS WHITE--A SOFTWARE BUG!

05/30-Sun-EYC-MRA Spring ```````1 Dsgn Day 1of2 1000hrs
Race	Person	Position
05/30-Sun-EYC-MRA Spring ```````1 Dsgn Day 1of2 1000hrs	Duff, Bob	Signaler
	Marvin, Bradford	Timer
	Koopman, John	PRO
	Shea, Kevin	Mark/Pin
	Byrne, Cheryl	Mark/Pin
	Schneider, Susie Oliver	Mark/Pin
	Ducharme, Sarah	Utility

05/31-Mon-EYC-MRA Spring `````` 1 Dsgn Day 2of2 1000hrs
Race	Person	Position
05/31-Mon-EYC-MRA Spring `````` 1 Dsgn Day 2of2 1000hrs	Duff, Bob	Signaler
	Marvin, Bradford	Timer
	Koopman, John	PRO
	Shea, Kevin	Mark/Pin
	Byrne, Cheryl	Mark/Pin
	Reiley, Toby	MARK Boat
	Piper, Mike	Mark/Pin

Now that seems enough for a start this week. I am certain that one or more of my friends on the race committee will find something about this blog which is wrong or should have been different or, most likely, that I should not have done it at all. However, the nice thing about a blog is that you can do most anything short of slander.

PLEASE USE THE COMMENT FACILITY BELOW JUST FOR FUN! THAT WOULD PLEASE ME! IT WILL BE DIRECT WITHOUT A POSTAGE STAMP. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK--BAD OR GOOD.

See you next week with views of the race committee stuff---maybe!

RICH WILSON (MBA '82) SAILS HIS WAY ONTO A COVER STORY IN THE HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL ALUMNI BULLETIN-Sept. 2009

2009-09-24T19:26:00.002-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff - 9/24/2009,

I was delighted to see Rich Wilson's familiar face on the cover of my HBS ALUMNI BULLETIN when it arrived this evening. I hasten to copy the cover story for those who many not see it otherwise. For ENLARGED TYPE (readable) send an email request to rduff19@comcast.net.

Three New Leighton O'Connor Photographs Plus a Personal "Flick" for My TEXAS Friends

2009-02-07T16:52:00.011-05:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

A small group of 'headers attended a Leighton O'Connor photo exhibition last night in Beverly, Mass. We had fun despite FALSE claims expressed there by Beverly's Mayor, a Justice of the Peace and several others. They boast that the U.S. Navy originated in Beverly when we all know that the navy started right here with General Glover and his men of Marblehead!

In my blog "movie" of January 23rd, I used several of Leighton's still shots for reporting on a winning sailboat. She was yacht RUN from Great Britain racing in Florida last month at KEY WEST 2009. We ran that "flick" yesterday at Leighton's show where the mayor and his friends misspoke.

I have used some of Leighton's great shots in the past. Yesterday I purchased several new things from him. The first at the top shows a small fleet of "frostbite" Sonar sailboats racing in the cold, cold winter water in Marblehead Harbor with the Corinthian Yacht Club in the foreground. CYC is closed each fall and reopens in the Spring.

Following that, I show Leighton's picture of midshipman standing on spars all the way to the top of a square rigger. We are fairly sure that this is the United States Coast Guard Ship EAGLE. Notice the four jibs hoisted in place. She was taken from the Germans as reparations after WW II. Serving as a midshipman training ship, she sails here from time to time and will join a fleet of "TALL SHIPS" at Boston in the second week of July. They will then leave to sail "down East" to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

That colorful picture is Redd's pond where ducks compete with racing model sailboats for "water rights" in the warmer months. Originally, Redd's pond was the source of water for people without good wells.

Down below I sneak in a little flick of friends from a party "down home in TEXAS" this Christmas. I tried sending this to friends via e-mail and am told that no one succeeded in opening the iMOVIE. So, I am trying it here. I extracted each person's head shot from digital "snap shots" created by several people. My friend Maurice Tunnell and wife Liz hosted the wonderful party and sent a DVD of everyone's pictures to all of us. Many thanks to the Tunnells.

Turn up your volume now to hear Tom Lehrer sing "MY HOME TOWN" for this is what the iMOVIE is about --sort-of. Tom was teaching math at Harvard College when I found him there. He and his many funny "sarcastic" songs fit nicely with my old home town group. Several of us studied high school math under "Brother" R. N. Smith who conducted classes like a Sunday School session with roll call and selections from "the blue book of happiness" (Trigonometry). He applied special names for each of us which appear in that small type in the movie. His humor reminds me of Tom Lehrer.

Click the small triangle to play. I had to click it a couple of times to make it go. Turn up your speakers. It can be replayed.

Pictured folks are associated in one way or other with the same graduating class at Adamson High School-Dallas, Texas in June 1947. The guys were all in Junior ROTC starting at about age thirteen and continuing until we got through with college. I jokingly refer to us as "the Hitler Youth of the U.S.A." because we were similar to what we read of the Germans being trained as "Hitler Youth" youngsters to kill the enemy, whoever that might be. In retrospect, it has been interesting to discover that none of these "cadets", with all that training in ROTC, will admit to ever having killed anybody.

See you again soon,

Bob Robert Bobby Olin Junior Duff

US Junior ROTC-Cadet Colonel-commission dated April 1, 1947

LEIGHTON O'CONNOR "FLICKS" of the 1st of many wins for Yacht RUN at Acura KEY WEST 2009 REGATTA with CATHERINE ZENNSTROM as Crew.

2009-01-23T11:21:00.019-05:00

HOWDY FROM BOB DUFF,

The photo/"FLICKS"(sort-of) below show action pictures by LEIGHTON O'CONNOR from January 19th on the first day of the KEY WEST 2009 REGATTA - Division 1, IRC-1. Shots feature the British yacht RAN, a TP52 owned by NIKLAS ZENNSTROM of Hamble, GBR. She won in that first race and continued with high performances to win her division after 10 races.

These plus many other stills may be viewed on:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14355&l=ed13b&l=ed13b&id=1034710764

or http://leightonoc.smugmug.com/sports/605075

RAN's owner had TIM POWELL on the helm, JEREMY ROBINSON doing tactics and what looks like a total crew of twelve including CATHERINE ZENNSTROM, the only woman. She scrambles to the high rail among many male elbows during three O'CONNOR pictures of a single tack.

When seeing Catherine performing this way, I recalled the 1966 CHICAGO to MACKINAC race years ago when my young bride, DEBORAH COLLINS DUFF, joined us on JACK KEARN's yacht KAREN as the ONLY WOMEN CREW in a very big fleet. We thought nothing of it until the CHICAGO TRIBUNE grabbed the story for a combined society page/sports page spread. DEBBIE was a sailor but had formerly been a Chicago Debutante which seemed to interest the news people.

This did not end with that one story! A week or so later after sailing home from a great race, a call came from the adoption agency saying that a new infant son had been born for us. The TRIB printed a routine birth announcement for DEBBIE and me leaving some readers to ponder how we managed the birth on a yacht racing far out on Lake Michigan. Thus, I always notice women racing yachts as does my grown son ROB III. Perhaps all men do!

This is my very first attempt at an IMOVIE (that's APPLE talk) in this DUFFSTUFF blog. Many surprises came my way. If I do not find a bigger picture than what shows now in "edit mode" before "publishing", I will never try it again. However, some folks say "never say never". I started this over 10 days ago and the first movie "compile" took over 3 days before ending abnormally. It got much faster when I was taught a few of the tricks by APPLE "Geniuses" in One to One training sessions.

I have bought an adapter from APPLE to hook this MacBook Pro to my ancient TV which should give me a somewhat larger view. It cost about 20 bucks at APPLE plus $10 or so for cables at Radio Shack. Even if I never publish another tiny slide-show/movie, I will have some fun playing with the "hugh" TV slave display for my computer. I may talk about that in future blogs. However, it is now late Sunday evening and the TV refuses to "mirror" my MAC as promised. I am scheduled for another one to one session at APPLE tomorrow. I have confidence---hope!

"THE DEDICATION, or One of those Moments that makes Marblehead a very special town." -- THE MARBLEHEAD REPORTER story by Bob Triplett - May 27, 1976

2008-11-01T17:53:00.016-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

Marked pages 1 & 2 of this e-mail copy belong down behind the Thornton Clark picture from the newspaper micro film before its marked pages 3 & 4 . This blog software keeps doing strange things to me. SORRY!

This has been a special week for me bringing forth happy little artifacts from past times with the International One Design yachts in Marblehead. This article by Bob Triplett from the MARBLEHEAD REPORTER - May 1976 says it all quite nicely.

THE EDWARD ADAMS DIXEY JUNIOR MEMORIAL TREE belongs to Jill and Tom Hoffman of Franklin Street Marblehead. Without them there would be no story.

Click on the clipping to get bigger type. You can almost recognize me in the dark picture leading the "ragtag parade" with my bagpipes and "the Guest of Honor, Ed Dixey (sic Dixie?) as Triplett wrote. This and several other photos are dark with the ancient micro film technology of 30+ years ago. I can send some better copies to you by e-mail, but they are dark. Just write rduff19@comcast.net.

The microfilm is from Marblehead Abbott Public Library where the librarian Chris Evans was fantastic aiding my quest. I wrote the e-mail below (blog software has forced it ABOVE and then BELOW) late last night after we "found" the missing brass plaque. My recollections were not too far off from what Bob Triplett wrote years ago.

I hasten to point out that I was NOT a "pie eyed piper" as Triplett implied; and though not a great bagpipe player as Tripett says "of questionable talent" , I was the best one around for the parade. That is the story of my extensive bagpiping life.

ADDED NOTE IN GREEN

of 11/05/2008---

I just learned from the MARBLEHEAD CEMETERY DEPARTMENT at WATERSIDE CEMETERY that Edward Adams Dixey Junior died on June 26, 2000. Consequently, I am marking my 2009 calender for a REDEDICATION CEREMONY near that ninth anniversary of Ed's death and the thirty-third anniversary of the initial dedication of THE EDWARD ADAMS DIXEY JUNIOR MEMORIAL TREE by The Little Harbor Historical Society.

I have ordered TWO reproduction sets of the brass plaques. One set will be re-placed on the tree exactly like the originals at the re-dedication ceremony. The other set, along with the historic originals, will be presented to the Hoffman's friend, Judy Anderson, for a proposed permanent display at THE MARBLEHEAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Judy will be invited to attend the celebration to accept these treasures.

I am asking here and will do so again in person, that THE REPORTER newspaper cover this late May/early June 2009 event with a special re-printing of that May 27, 1976 article shown (poorly) above. I would hope that, as a minimum, they could at least reprint the two pictures of Bob Duff that did not reproduce very well from micro film. THE REPORTER should cover this re-dedication ceremony. Maybe we should also invite some other North Shore papers to attend and report. THE BOSTON GLOBE? Perhaps these papers could invite the general public to this great occasion!

I am certain that Jill and Tom Hoffman will attend since they own the tree. I will encourage Thornton and Pat Clark to journey to Marblehead from home in Alabama for this important occasion. I promise dinner for them at the Eastern Yacht Club.

I will try to track down Dave Smith and Charlie Hamlin who both made memorable speeches that day. Current owners of IOD #16 TANGO, Rachel and Ian Morrison and Mickael Best MUST be there so it cannot be on a race day. Though it has eluded me so far, I will either find the old one or try to write anew the "epic poem" which Bob Tiplett seemed to like and which was received so enthusiastically on that wonderful day in 1976.

CAVEAT LECTOR! See you next week.

BRAD MARVIN'S 80th BIRTHDAY PARTY & A VERY LITTLE BIT OF GOP POLITICS - October 26, 2008

2008-10-26T20:31:00.031-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

The above is a rare smiling look at Bradford Marvin - 1928 - present - on the occasion of his 80th birthday celebration. Most of this blog deals with that party.

I published this Sunday night with some documents included toward the end. I checked it today (Monday) and found that blog software had dumped them into cyberspace. Here I am again reconstructing yesterday's masterpiece. Hold your applause - please!

This first document ,"NORMAL POSITION - THE FINISH LINE", will brief you on the racing rule or the total absence of a current rule, and will outline my position versus my good friend and RC colleague Brad Marvin. There is another RC member who persisted with him for some time. They have both gone silent of late. Click on this and any other image for an expanded view of a rather insignificant old argument. RC members could see this at the celebration.

This printed card with the "IC"was on the back of Brad Marvin's birthday portrait shown above.

Another (missing) piece of "NORMAL POSITION" printing was on the back of the beautiful glossy photo below of four International One Design yachts flying chutes on a downwind leg during the 2008 Marblehead NOOD Regatta. It is the same Leighton O'Connor photograph shown above on the first document near Brad's portrait. Their spinnaker poles are in "Normal Position"which is the whole point of this little exercise.

My friend Brad and another colleague objected to a winning IODs performance because his/her SPINNAKER TACK WAS NOT IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE FITTING ON THE END OF THE IOD POLE. I immediately contested their stand. They persisted in this argument for several weeks every time an IOD finished. Fortunately, no "official protest action" was taken because they were both dead wrong. These documents present facts for this esoteric dispute.

As we approach election day it seems appropriate to note a little of that stuff endured here in Marblehead. A good example happened just after Brad Marvin's part last night. I had discussed some of those party plans with you last week.

You might understand that we seldom talk politics at the Eastern Yacht Club. There would be no reason for such talk among yacht race friends! Along with several things for this celebration, I printed 25 cards for each of the 25 dinner guests. I planned on our playing the little Japanese "business card" game taught to us\by Alex Dearborn. However, a very crowded table and much flowing wine made the game inappropriate for this lively bunch.

I cautioned all party guests to hang onto their cards since I refuse to print more for Brad's 90th celebration. Last night the rare smiling picture had been printed of this MIDDLE CLASS (1950-ha! ha!) HARVARD COLLEGE GRADUATE with "1928 - 2008" for the eighty years. Brad pointed out immediately that this format is for a "tombstone" and not for a "living" eighty year old's portrait. The proper syntax is "1928 to Present". If known, I could have printed yesterday's portrait correctly and then used it again for Brad's ninetieth. Anyway, the party was a great success for 25 dinner guests topped off by a big sparkler on a vanilla birthday cake. Wish you could all have been there!

After it all, I discovered this delightful bumper sticker on the trunk lid of my new golden VW convertible. I would not have blemished that brand new finish myself, but I agree with its message. I knew immediately that the lovely Mary Patricia "Pat" Ayer had done the deed. She had done the same for husband Jim Ayer. Readers know Jim's many photographs in my blogs and will recognize him as the maker of those remarkable wooden jigsaw puzzles mentioned here from time to time.

Pat sent a compatible political cartoon which defied my attempt to copy it to the blog. Sorry about that. Maybe I can figure out the process before election day when I may have some more TANGO memorabilia to share.

The next piece of party art was this lovely photo of

my old International One Design TANGO #16 shown racing under red and white spinnaker with three others of her own kind. I love this shot by Leighton O'Connor. His web site is at the very top of my "FAVORITE YACHTING LINKS" above under Jim Ayer's photo of our race signal boat. Take a look at Leighton's creative yachting photographs in that hyperlink, "AN EXCITING LOOK AT NOOD 2008.....". You cannot help but be amazed by the beauty which he captures.

Oh yes, I have almost forgotten Jim McCully's recommendation that I mark my writing with the warning CAVEAT LECTOR. I have an old Texas friend now retired to Montana, Donald Lee Clark, who knows a bit about writing. He tells me he feels the same as Jim.

See you next week.

PREPARATION FOR BRAD MARVIN's 80th BIRTHDAY PARTY as of OCTOBER 20, 2008

2008-10-20T16:04:00.007-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

The picture below is a very fast "land yacht" which belongs to ALEX DEARBORN of Maine. He calls it a '69 DESERTER GT with '69 VW IRS Pan & Front Beam, KG disc brakes, Porsche 912 engine, 914 seats , 356b Instruments, 911 wheels and so on....I have some other pics of this beauty. Write and I will send them to you. rduff19@comcast.net

ALEX was my secret idol back in the 60/70's when he was making "dune buggies" and, as he once said, "earning a Master's Degree in Bankruptcy Chapter 911". I was sneaking around Marblehead trying to steal his technology for the 1929 Model "A" (VW) roadster with rumble seat I prototyped for another business idea. It could have earned me another master's degree. Fortunately, I stumbled back into the computer game where I was never bored. ALEX went on to establish a most successful enterprise restoring Mercedes Benz among other things.

He and "the car" are in this blog today because of a luncheon meeting we had recently where ALEX told us about a little Japanese game he knows. It is wonderful! I plan to introduce you to that game now as I tell you about plans for BRAD MARVIN's 80th birthday party coming up this Saturday.

We expect twenty people for dinner. Many are Brad's relatives that Yacht Race Committee Comrades meet once a year at best. Suffice it to say that names are sometimes a problem for some of us----that is where I often find myself. ALEX and his Japanese friends have come to the rescue. This game requires just a little cooperation from most of BRAD's guests. Hopefully, enough will read this blog to get us started Saturday.

It seems that the Japanese ALWAYS present you with a business card at an introduction. They expected you to return one of your own. In meetings, when seated, they often place each new card in a circular array positioning each in the direction of its owner. This facilitates polite little glimpses when needed to help "learn" names. Pretty clever! Everyone wins!

For BRAD's 80th party, I have prepared 20 special "business" cards for each of the 20 guest. I have arranged seating so that a "place card/business card" packet defines the table. Here below is a montage of these cards for your review. You can actually click on the picture for a closer look at some of the identities.

NOTE--until published with this unfriendly software I did not realize how I chopped off the names of BRAD's two children. If I try to fix it now the whole thing may explode! AMANDA Elliot M. Terenzio is BRAD's only daughter married to PETER B. Then, "TACK" Bradford Marvin Jr is BRAD's only son married to MARY PAT.

Also included at each place is this lovely glossy 4 x 6" LEIGHTON O'CONNOR photograph showing my old IOD #16 TANGO with three other magnificent yachts FLYING THEIR SPINNAKERS WITH POLES IN THEIR NORMAL POSITION FOR RACING. The reverse side of the photo has print explaining yet again for BRAD and SUSIE just what "NORMAL" position is on these racing yachts.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRAD

AN IOD BEAUTY after TAKING A MOMENT WITH THE MOUNTAINS-October 14, 2008

2008-10-14T12:53:00.031-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

I am a bit late this week and here is a picture suggesting just why. This is a place called THE CATHEDRAL LEDGE near North Conway, New Hampshire. I visited my son ROB III at his home there this past week with my youngest STEPHEN II. We had a blast including my first time thrill of seeing THE CATHEDRAL LEDGE. I only skied when coming here years ago and missed all this beauty which was under the snow.

Notice the girl sitting at the far top left. Then, look for the two climbers hanging near the picture bottom. They are near the little trees which also cling to life. They pulled themselves to these incredible heights from the valley floor. My friend JOEL KINNEY claims to climb here. I seriously doubt that he or the others joining him have good sense. JOEL once described me as "an elderly gentleman" while seeking sympathy in a legal dispute. I will not put into print the thoughts I have about JOEL's actions in regard to THE CATHEDRAL LEDGDE. Click on any picture to enlarge your view and solidify my opinion.

Initially I was planning to include a couple of shots of STEVE performing surgery on a giant Elm tree at ROB's house. Alas, this blog of mine defeats me again. None of those good shots will make it tonight. STEVE was graduated in Landscape Architecture from URI and has special training and skills for tree work and climbing. He fantasizes about every tall tree or steeple in New England. When the steeplejacks rigged the tower on Marblehead's Old North Church for painting, I feared it might take knotted ropes to keep STEVE from heading out back and doing some moonlight repelling.

But at this point we were dealing with a great big tree. This giant Elm next to ROB's house was inviting varmints such as squirrels, etc. into the attic causing a mess. The Elm's great big limb also threatened winter damage to the house. Solution? Call in MACDUFF! STEVE, that is!

We were completely amazed at STEVE's performance. He dressed with an array of equipment and ropes to make an astronaut blush. Spurs adorned his feet like a fighting rooster. He moved with grace and quiet confidence. He whipped straight up the tree to a high fork for the leverage needed to control many small limbs and the big one which was about six inches in diameter. It all came drifting (or banging) down for stacking like firewood.

I labeled him "ARBORIST", but STEVE says he must pass a rigorous examination before even his father is allowed to call him "ARBORIST". Until he takes this examination making it appropriate to call STEPHEN BOVELLE DUFF II an "ARBORIST", please call STEVE anyway at 1-781-631-0033 if you need tree work. E-mail rduff19@comcast.net. I will not tell anyone that he is not yet a licensed "ARBORIST"unless they ask! Meanwhile, I may bring up this subject again in the future. Also, trained Landscape Architects make rather nice plans if you find yourself interested in something other than an "ARBORIST".

Saturday night we joined a raucous bunch of frustrated skiers at WILDCAT MOUNTAIN buying lift tickets for the winter and watching some outrageous "Hot Dog" ski movies. ROB III claims he skis that way all the time. I must tell you that he (and today's ski equipment) has come a long way since our first run together on ZOOMER CHAIR at CANNON MOUNTAIN when he was just two. Here he is teaching skiing this winter at WILDCAT. He must have had a pretty good instructor himself.

Now that we have dealt with New Hampshire mountains, here we have LEIGHTON O'CONNOR's beautiful photograph of TERI & HERB MOTLEY's IOD #49 KUNGSORMEN. With one of her crew concentrating on the spinnaker laundry, HERB, TERI and the rest have her heading up wind. There are blue and white chutes ranging down on her bow during this 2008 Marblehead NOOD Regatta race. I trust that the red, white & blue chutes of other International One Designs are far behind like they often were when I crewed #49 with "BIG DON" MACINTOSH in the good old days.

# 49 showed a 6,7 & 8th in the NOOD scores I scanned. A side issue for MOTLEYS is the spelling of the yacht name. MRA has it as "KUNGSORMEN" with an "M" where the NOOD shows "KUNGSORNEN" with the "N". LEIGHTON O'CONNOR has picked up the "M" and it is shown that way in the IOD web site which erroneously shows TANGO as wood. Is it "M" or "N", TERI & HERB?

Check out some of LEIGHTON's sites to keep your sailing juices flowing as we plunge into winter:

http://leightonoconnor.blogspot.com/

http://leightonoc.smugmug.com/

I will be visiting LEIGHTON a great deal between now and Spring! See you again next week!

Week-Long Job Trying to Join "IWEB" with BLOGGER Stuff - October 6, 2008

2008-10-01T11:17:00.048-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

If you have followed earlier DUFFSTUFF, you may recall my problems with this software, particularly about inserting and placing photographs within text. In my regular APPLE schooling I am learning "IWEB" for "real" web sites similar to what the "big boys" do.

I attempted this week to bring together that IWEB software and the stuff I have used to date in BLOGSPOT. I began with one yacht photo followed by three nice pictures of Marblehead's Old North Church Steeple taken by Ulrike Welsch.

Click this hyperlink for information about Uli's book:

http://www.amazon.com/Marblehead-Ulrike-Welsch/dp/1889833169

The IWEB software marriage did not work! To recover, I have loaded the three steeple pictures by Uli in the old "unfriendly" way. I then included my own steeple shot plus the yacht photo. It sequenced last when I wanted it first. I just cannot go back tonight to figure a revised approach.

Above is the tower in the dead of Winter. Next left below is Fall with the beautiful golden leaves. Next is a Summer shot of the steeple from Gerry Island in Little Harbor. It shows a bit of Ted Hood's former boat yard. The expensive homes in the background sit on land where Ted built fancy racing yachts. He allowed us "charity cases" to store our racing yachts there in the winter. He named us that because we do-it-yourself boaters generated very little revenue for the yard.

I took the last tower shot for early Autumn from an attic window about four stories above our back yard. Clearly, we live adjacent to gardens in the back area of the church and steeple. If you look closely at that photo, you will see the steeplejack preparing everything for the frigid blasts of winter coming soon. Click on the picture for an enlarged view.

My son Stephen Duff trained in college as a Landscape Architect, but he loves to climb things like big trees, towers and steeples. He worked happily for a time as a steeplejack climbing many old steeples all around New England. He says that this man painting on Old North would be insulted if I called him a "painter" even though that is what he does while repelling himself on the steeple. Per Steve, that would be like calling a "rag shaker" (sailor) a "stink potter" (motor boater). It is just not done

The steeple built in 1824/5 by members of the Goodwin family, rings its big bell each Sunday morning to summon 'Headers to Congregational Church services. It also tolls loud and long on July 4th and on George Washington's "real" birthday February 22nd. That makes "sleeping-in" a little troublesome for folks here in the area called "down town"! We "foreigners" (not born in Marblehead for several generations) are prone to call it simply "old town".

George Washington spent time in Marblehead in those early days of the U.S. Saint Michael's Episcopal Church nearby claims that George worshiped there in what is now my church built 1714.

One wag suggests that if he worshipped at St. Michael's, it is possible that George Washington slept there during the sermon!

By some miracle I can begin typing here next to the steeple pictures.

It is time for talk of yachts and the very exciting one-design J105s.

We had seventeen of these beauties racing with us in the July 2008 Marblehead Race Week and NOOD Regatta. Leighton O'Connor got this great NOOD picture of my very own orthopedic surgeon Dr. Steven Hollis and crew on his J-105 SIROCCO. I hope my DOC will be pleased that Leighton did not show them NUDE in the NOOD! Ugggh!
Knowing that I am on the race committee Signal Boat, Dr. Hollis always cautions me with "SIROCCO IS NOT OVER EARLY AT THE START! " We did not catch him a single time in the few J-105 starts we ran for them.

To see many many more of Leighton's pictures click:

http://leightonoc.smugmug.com/gallery/

56900614_WMR98/16/351115864_DM3RX#351115864

_DM3RX

Try copy/paste to your browser if you have the same problem as I have today. Call if you need coaching at 781/631-0033. I'll try! Also let me know about any problems. I can send this or other links to you via e-mail.

The following is a special link just for SIROCCO interests:

http://leightonoc.smugmug.com/search/

index.mg?searchWords=SIROCCO&searchType=InUser&Nick

Name=leightonoc&x=7&y=6

Looking closely there, you will see Ward Blogget, Peter Frisch and their crew sneaking into the J-105 limelight by virtue of their matching SIROCCO yacht name. Protest anyone?

Or you can go to the link below and do a search by any boat name....

http://leightonoc.smugmug.com/

Consider coming back to DUFFSTUFF again soon. Sometime in the future, I will publish a great IOD spinnaker picture from Leighton. It shows my beloved IOD TANGO #16 with POMPANO #45 and ELECTRA #2. It could settle an old argument about a racing rules which keeps cropping up on the ETO. Brad Marvin is my somewhat stubborn adversary. He could abandon his position based upon evidence in that photograph.

A BRIEF (UNOFFICIAL) RETROSPECTIVE ON TED HOOD'S IOD #47 - PRINCESS - SEPTEMBER 27, 2008

2008-09-27T21:11:00.009-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

This memorable view of an International One Design wooden bottom brings back a swarm of fond memories for those of us who started our sailing lives in the "good old days" when men were men and racing yachts were just wood - beautiful wood! We can tell a lot of tales. Here I am trying to tell some of them on my fancy MacBook Pro computer which never was made of wood.

These recent pictures may be the last glimps of what things were like in the beginning for many of us who started in those primitive days - this is Ted Hood's once dominant 1939 Marblehead International One Design - IOD - #47 - PRINCESS. She waits patiently for miraculous restoration magic to be performed by Marblehead's Bruce Dyson. She will look "just like she came off of the freighter from Norway years ago". That was the oft heard comment late this summer when Sara and Ken Drewry's #33 SMALL HOTEL came back racing after new owner Lori Bate had her restored by Bruce's genius!

Below is PRINCESS again from her port side. Click on this picture (or any of them) for an enlarged view. Notice especially the horizontal length of the 10 hole chain plate showing above the covering board. I will present other pictures and comparisons to the stainless steel chain plates we salvaged from 1936 TANGO #16 when she sank and we converted her on a new glass hull. I will some "fascinating" details of IOD chain plates in future issues of this blog. Come back again to DUFFSTUFF! Meanwhile, I have asked past World Commodore Thornton Clark for more remembrances to share with you about this whole era .

NOTE AS OF OCTOBER 8, 2008---My good friend Jim Ayer just called to correct my original text saying "starboard" where the pictures are of PRINCESS's "port" side. I just fixed it. It is always pleasant to find that anybody reads my DUFFSTUFF. This little bloop reminds me of my ex-wife when I was rowing her in a dinghy some years ago. She faced forward and I faced aft rowing. She said "Row to Port!". I did! Then she said typically, "NO STUPID! ---MY PORT!". Believe me despite that little story, she is an excellent sailboat racer!

Long before I got here, oft told tales say that Ted & PRINCESS dominated races even without the use of HOOD's narrow panel sails. Brad Marvin (Commodore of PLEON YACHT CLUB in the late thirties) reports that Ted was so feared by the other IOD skippers that they refused to allow the customary annual purchase of sails to ever be granted to Hood's Sail Loft. Brad says they went to a place he calls "OMAR THE TENT MAKER" for mainsails to prevent Ted from "cheating" if he made sails for the whole fleet.

Historically since 1936/1939 one sail each year is bought for each boat in the entire fleet from the same sailmaker in an attempt to maintain near perfect one-design racing conditions. It has worked rather well, but many aggressive sail makers have avoided IODs since they must usually sail with a competitor's product. There have been some exceptions - not very many. IOD is an interesting sail market! Hood's loft did make a lot of sails for us some years back. I just retrieved a HOOD JIB from my attic and gave it to a friend for a storm sail on his Bristol 35.5. The sail felt like new despite its age.

Going on with the tales, rumors are that Ted was pressured to sell PRINCESS away from Marblehead because she was thought to be "a super boat". She went away to the Great Lakes. Years later, she has ended up back here in the condition shown by these pictures. Ted's nephew Chris Hood owns her now and is behind the restoration move. No stranger to the IOD, Chris owned and raced IOD MISTRESS(?) #3 which was later sold into the racing fleet in Northeast Harbor Maine. I also have heard that Chris built all 13 of the identical glass IODs which seeded the new racing fleet on Nantucket Island Massachusetts. As to the "super boat" label for PRINCESS, most of us think we know that it was something other than the boat! It will be most interesting to see how she performs on the racing circuit in the twenty-first century.

Meanwhile, Bruce Dyson ( former sailmaker as is his winning IOD crew Norm Cressy) reports that Ted Hood is baffled as to why anyone would want to restore his old boat! See you next week.

ADDITIONAL MARBLEHEAD MUSINGS OF THE MOMENT - SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

2008-09-22T20:54:00.011-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff,

My computers (three of them right now) are playing tricks on me. My Internet access and e-mail have been down for a few days. Comcast just got me back up on only this DELL. I am putting out this blog issue using what resources are here.

I bought my own camera this week and have pictures of an old special place for IOD TANGO in Ted Hood's Marblehead Little Harbor Boat Yard. However, the Dell computer does not yet accept my little photo transfers. My MacBook Pro took them graciously for review and you may enjoy them later on. They must wait for more technical breakthroughs before I can show them to you.

Meanwhile, I am stealing three shots from Ulrika Welsch's wonderful book "MARBLEHEAD" which you may purchase via her web site identified below. Above here is a shot of the old boat yard from Gerry Island in the middle of our Little Harbor. Those multi-million dollar town houses in the background have been built where some really great racing yachts were once built and where TANGO spent several winters and springs along with quite a few other smaller racing yachts. I will get into more of those stories in the weeks ahead. The church tower in the background above is just below my old house on High Street. Its G.D. bell rings into my bedroom window as a call to church on Sunday mornings. I am usually already at Episcopal church/choir a few blocks away. However, I do sputter and curse a little when I try to sleep on a Sunday past 10 AM.

Before leaving Little Harbor tonight, I must point out that the "town father's" refused Ted permission to dredge the harbor for more of the big yachts which wanted to come here and spend lots of money in our little town. Consequently Ted took his several yachting businesses to Newport, Rhode Island where the new Little Harbor Boat Yard has generated a lot of money, jobs and employment for hundreds of people. What price quaint beauty?

Next below, Ule captured a fleet of International One Design yachts reaching out on a triangular course with the wind over the starboard (right) side. As you might expect, I suggest that my TANGO #16 is way out in front of these laggards. The triangle course is used infrequently these days with starts going directly into the wind on a windward/leeward/windward/leeward course to finish with legs one nautical mile or so each.

The other picture below is ole Duff lighting the candles on the antique chandelier at St. Michael's Episcopal Church. It was built in 1714. I sang Russian Bass here and lit candles for years to get away from that G.D. loud bell at Old North Church Sunday mornings. Incidentally, our Old North is not the one in Boston where Paul Revere saw the lanterns. Paul did make OUR bell which the Yankees broke celebrating on July 4th 1776.

Sorry for the blog bugs! They will not let me type below the pictures, but I can paste the info on Ulrika's book inviting you to see more of her wonderful work.

Photographs by Ulrike Welsch

Published by Commonwealth Editions, 2000

ISBN 1-889833-16-9

" . . . Marblehead is infinitely more than a historic town by the ocean. It has always been defined as much by its nonconformity and independence as by its natural beauty and preoccupation with the sea . . . "

Hardcover, 10x10", 128 pages, 127 Color Photos

authographed for $29.95

free shipping within the continental U.S.A.

(MA residents add 5% sales tax)

As to popular demand the book has been re-printed and is again available!

Tel/Fax in U.S.A.: 781-631-1641

E-mail:ulrikefotos@comcast.net

MORE MARBLEHEAD MUSINGS OF THE MOMENT -SEPTEMBER 13, 2008

2008-09-13T17:23:00.004-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff Saturday September 13, 2008,

As I write this just now some IODs are coming in from racing the Corinthian Yacht Club Fall Series. I neglected to mention it last Saturday since Brad Marvin and I and the rest of EYC-RC are now on the beach for this year. The series continues for two more Saturdays with very small participation. IOD results along with those for the Etchells are available via the link provided above for MRA-FALL Series Racing Scores-2008 under FAVORITE YACHTING LINKS (MORE).

Last Saturday Jennifer and Greg Mancusi-Ungaro with (I think) Margaret (age 6) and Eleanor(8) in #2 ELECTRA beat SMALL HOTEL, TANGO and RHYTHM. Looking backward, the Mancusi-Ungaros took this picture of TANGO to make their point with me about my beloved IOD at that moment. Come on Rachel & Ian Morrison, get her going! Click on the photo for a larger view of Tinker's Island and the hazy view of the Boston Skyline as Tropical Storm Hanna was giving us a little scare.

As reported last week, most all IODs should defer to TANGO since she and Thornton Clark set the stage for many of the new boats that followed. TANGO (the first conversion) was hull #108 on the "new" glass numbering system starting at #101 (Jim Bishop-Long Island). ELECTRA is hull #109 despite keeping her original Long Island Fleet sail numbers. The whole history of conversion from old wood to new glass would be fun to research and document.

I am fairly certain that Bermuda's wooden boats have all been converted with the probable exception of Stanhope Joel's #1. She was maintained immaculately since 1939 like many of the "gold platers" in Northeast Harbor, Maine. That #1 was raced most successfully in my day by Archie Hooper. Archie had more than one of the "keeper" cups which went with the King(?) Bermuda Gold Cup raced each year. I hope that my stumbling words evoke comments, corrections and extensions for our common knowledge.

Speaking of that, Thornton Clark corrected some of my comments last week as follows:

"There are very few corrections. Peter Mimno had ridden down to the American Yacht Club with me in the new Jaguar to examine the boat before I bought it, so were well aware of the color. We went through radar at 135mph because we were late for the meeting with the owner, but managed to get away with out a ticket (that, however, is another long story)."

" It took us all night and part of the morning to get through Long Island Sound. When we exited Long Island Sound, I think it was Tom Brennan who kept looking at a mark just off to starboard that did not show on our chart. Only when it began to rise did we discover that we had a submarine alongside."

"We sailed into Newport, making a stop before heading on into Buzzards Bay."

"It is illegal, and I don't know if the control officers on the west as you enter the Cape Cod Canal just didn't see us in the dark, but we did not have a working engine and had to sail through the canal. Stopped early the next morning at that small harbor on the starboard side just before you enter Massachusetts Bay to fix the jammed main halyard."

"Had a beautiful beam reach from there to Marblehead. Dick Kirk, now deceased, was on board and I think Dick Fleming was also. I believe there was one more, so will ask and let you know."

I have to leave at 5:30 tomorrow morning for an Alabama Scenic River Trail meeting in the Delta near Mobile, so will have to get back to you later."

"Thornton"

editor's note - - contact in Montgomery, AL -

thorntonclark@aol.com - 334-396-4656

That beautiful black Jaguar brings up memories of its own. TANGO, in her wooden glory, had a black bottom which got a lot of attention. Debbie, Thornton, Phil Somerby and I spent many hours smoothing her with black wet sandpaper. Our son Rob (Robin) Duff (probably 4 years) was with us and his baby sister Allison at Hood's boat yard where they spent the early years of youth. Robin, always helpful, volunteered to help us wet sand the black bottom paint. You probably see where this is going. Yes, his efforts were soundly rejected by us all. Being a DUFF, he gathered up sufficient rejected black sand paper and did a beautiful job on the gleaming black hood of Thornton's Jaguar.

I am gaining enthusiasm for keeping with this TANGO story a bit longer. I do have some nice pictures of our building the new converted glass TANGO. Also some other little stories which may amuse you.

The new link to BLUEJACKET SHIP/BOAT/HALF MODELS caught my eye. I offer it here for your perusal. See you next week.

MARBLEHEAD RACING IS OVER FOR THIS YEAR - WHAT NOW?- September 06, 2008

2008-09-06T19:15:00.008-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff early Saturday evening Sept. 6, 2008,

Like an old fire station horse being roused by the sound of a fire alarm, it is Saturday evening without the pleasure of yacht races to report. The season is over, but the compulsion is there to blog. So......here we go. The picture above is Thornton Clark and crew on IOD TANGO sometime thirty plus years ago. Phil Somerby, long gone and truly missed, is leaning on the gooseneck next to Debbie Collins Duff now Papps as I blast the air with my faithful Highland Bagpipes who are now gone like many old friends.

TANGO was built by Bjarne Aas in Frederikstad, Norway in 1936. She joined Corny Sheilds as Number 16 in the original Long Island fleet of International One Design Class yachts. They still bring pleasure to thousand of sailors all over the western world each yachting season.

Most recently Tom Brennan told a small luncheon group about TANGO's journey to Marblehead in the mid-1960s. I cannot do it justice here, but some highlights are that Thornton bought her sight unseen. I recall that the price was $1,900 versus current prices in the forty thousand range. Thornton, Tom and some other adventurous souls flew to New York after work on a Friday. They boarded TANGO (not yet her new name) after dark and did not know her color until sunup under full sail. First light did not cause gasps at her beauty but groans of anguish about the amount of work needed to bring her to the condition Thornton would demand.

They had a tiny outboard but I recall that they never used it. They sailed nonstop except for a brief pause in the Cape Cod Canal to repair a halyard problem. Some time later, Debbie and I had arrived here in Marblehead from San Franciso via Chicago with some good experiences with IC's (SF's version of the IOD name), 22 Square Meters and Scow boat racing in Wisconsis. We were right at home. I was racing with Carlie Needham and Ed Carol on SAGA #51 from my first weekend in town. That first day Jon Wales fouled us (in his IOD #9?) and yelled over that he "owed us one". I decided right then that this was the place I wanted to be. Meanwhile, Thornton had painted TANGO red and was being observed as an upstart Alabama Harvard boy worthy of some attention.

Carlie was somewhat ill in the spring of '69 and my sailing prospects with him were not bright. He never really recovered his health. In wandering around Hood's boat yard I recognized the bright red IOD as Thornton and introduced myself to him and TANGO. He had everything ripped down almost beyond recognition. I asked if I could help put her back together. The rest is history!

Debbie got very much into the act and took over all the varnish work on new teak comings, doghouse, seats, bulkheads, covering boards, etc. Fortunately, Debbie condemned the green paint Thornton had chosen as being "MAID'S ROOM GREEN" and shamed him into a glistening white with 14 karat gold cove lines. TANGO looked like new and began gaining a little respect from the graduates of Pleon and MIT who are not especially receptive to "outsiders" in case you have not noticed.

The seasons went by with some great times. We were up with TANGO and we were down. We got into several World's, North American's and a few Bermuda Race Weeks and into team racing against Long Island and Bermuda. Along the way, the first world IOD President, Bill John from the Long Island Fleet had died and Thornton succeeded him. The foundations were there by Bill John and Bjarne Aas for the new IOD glass boat design to convert wooden IOD boats to "new glass", but no one had ever done it. The opportunity to lead the way presented itself to President Thornton Clark in 1976 when wooden TANGO went down to a hard bottom at a spring mooring and could not be restored. Thornton took the initiative for the first complete conversion. This was an example of very bold leadership for which he deserves much praise and thanks. Steve Wales and John Benning followed suite right away converting #2 and #22 which they had campaigned for years after "stealing" them away from Long Island.

I started this evening with some additional scanned pictures of our converting TANGO to glass, but the "blog goddess" (she must be a woman) has banished them to cyberspace or somewhere. I will continue next week with more of the story. Maybe Thornton and Debbie will send their normal critique of my work before next Saturday.

An editor's note: the list of yachting links and the request for e-mail comments have been moved to the top of this blog. This was a frequent suggestion from my friend Jim Ayer. It just took me a long time to learn how to do it. His photos have enhanced my publications from the start. I have several more from him with ideas for future issues before the sailing season starts again in the spring.

MRA Series #4 - LABOR DAY REGATTA - Day #2 of 2 - August 31, 2008

2008-08-31T20:11:00.006-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff, August 31, 2008 2100 hours,

In breaking with the sailing season, I present here an invitation to "An Exhibit of New Watercolors and Children's Fantasies By Benneville Strohecker Marblehead Arts Association Henrick Gallery October 4-30, 2008". The watercolor portrait on the invitation is of a grandaughter of Jane and Tim Hunt who are the two people in the upper right-hand corner of the invitation. The granddaughter is Jianne Zagarri whose nickname is Gian-Gian as noted by her song in the little poem. Her twin brother is the "T.J." also mentioned there. Tiger and Beemer are pets. Mom is Lindsay Hunt Zagarri if I have all this at least partially correct. Dad is Ron.

Ben Strohecker was a long time member of the Eastern Yacht Club Race Committee as have been the Hunts including service during several summer months with me at the OLYMPIC YACHTING GAMES in Savanna, Georgia 1996. Ben has an outstanding racing record as captain of the SWEET SLOOP Herreshoff 12.5 when she was the corporate yacht for Harbor Sweets Handmade Chocolates. Ben could single hand SWEET SLOOP through a spinnaker jibe by using his own knobby knees. He has written a new , as yet unpublished illustrated children's book about "the day the ocean turned to chocolate". We think that you should enjoy Ben's artistry. Click on these images for an enlarged view.

The saddest day of the year is when we dock the signal boat after her last race of the summer. ETO will be hauled this week and it is all over but the shouting after a great season 2008. We managed to run two races each today for the four fleets at the TINKERS Line before heavy winds caused us to cut it short and "head for the barn".

We saw twenty-three knots of wind, a broken boom and a spinnaker pole bent like a pretzel. On the MIDWAY Line Herb Motley's IOD KUNGSORNEN #49 was "T-BONED" by another yacht and lost the top one-third of her mast. I assume that it was an ETCHELLS who rammed her since no self respecting IOD would hit another IOD. But, this is just my slightly biased view about the yachts that I love. Another mis-guess by me yesterday was the imagined lead by #46 IOD EDEN. I was deceived by the fact that Bruce Dyson and Norm Cressy in #7 GYPSY seemed to have lapped her. Oh my! And here it is the last night of August with no official scores posted on the MRA site.

My brief unofficial notes show Douglas Trees & Chris Small with a first and second today in Rhodes 19 #1680 SWING ROOM. Then came Mike Lane in WAY #3038 with a second and a first. I noted RONDAR #1 Viper (Rondar Race Boats Limited) with a first but missed the other Viper scores. Martha & Sam Altreuter pushed their Sonar #787 RESONANCE to a 1st and 2nd. Frank McNamara dominated the J-24s with two firsts in ZOT #4202.

MRA Series #4 - LABOR DAY REGATTA - Day #1 of 2 - August 30, 2008

2008-08-30T21:05:00.007-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff August 30, 2008, 2200 hours,

Ever since the Junior Olympics Festival in Rockport earlier this summer I have wanted to show this artistic display of starting flags created by Mariah Dunn for us on the race signal boat. Left to right are the 420 Champion flag, the Green 420 flag, the Laser flag, The Susie Schneider "BLACK FLAG" which discourages early starters and the blue "Preparatory 'P'" flag used during more genteel start sequences. I was so impressed with the artistry of Mariah's display that it is now a part of my own start flag organization. As reported earlier, my timing partner Brad Marvin just says harrumph, harrumph.

Speaking of timers, this again is me imitating Brad Marvin at the J.O.s in full race committee uniform complete with Brad's famous harrumph, harrumphs. Brad let me experience three days of the pressure and voice exhaustion that goes with yelling start times over and over. I was happy to go back to my normal job of quietly hoisting and dropping flags at the loud commands of Brad the Timer.

Today was another glorious day for sailboat racing here off Marblehead. We had 36 boats in 4 fleets with three races each for Vipers, Sonars and J-24s with the Rhodes 19s heading home after only two races. The "C" courses (double sausage windward leeward windward leeward) had 0.8 knot legs in a fairly steady breeze around six knots at 205 degrees magnetic.

I was a slacker today recording just a small piece of the race results in my personal notes. I got Viper #55 PLAYSTATION with Paul N. Zimmerman getting one gun. Martha and Sam Altrueter got a first and a second in #787 RESONANCE Sonar. Peter DeWolfe and Bill Kuall had a first in Sonar # 374 PDSquared. Official scores are not yet posted as I write. These may be available for tomorrow night's blog.

I am personally anxious to see the IOD scores as one of my favorite IOD yachts #46 EDEN owned by Jennifer and Greg Mancusi-Ungaro appeared to be leading #7 GYPSY with Bruce Dyson and Norm Cressy on an extremely long beat staged by the Corinthian Yacht Club. I hope that a Mangusi-Ungaro was on the helm of EDEN and one can never be certain but what the eight or six year old daughter was driving the boat. Hopefully we will get all the news Sunday.

Especially nice for me today was my son Stephen Duff working with David Soule on the pin boat. He will be back Sunday with Paul McCauley on the mark boat. Jim McCully and Art Saulsberry did the mark Saturday. Rear Commodore Phil Smith was our honored guest on the ETO signal boat. Jennifer Tegfeldt was our recorder with Susie Schneider PRO, Ross Peterson operator/gunner, Brad Marvin timing and me on flags. I have not heard other changes possible for Sunday.

See you tomorrow night!

PHRF NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONSHIPS - Day #3 of 3 on August 24, 2008 - Race for 38 Yachts on Line #1

2008-08-25T00:07:00.006-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff Sunday August 24, 2008,

Above Jim Ayer pictures our favorites for 2009 RACE COMMITTEE LEADERS! It's TRACEY & RICK for our next pick and they don't yet know it! That is the Meyers if you had not figured it out! Her IBM background should help clear up some of the EYC web site mess and they both know sailboat racing. The web's problem is one of data management. Jack Cochrane and Jeff Wargo operate alone in what appears to be a vacuum of computer effectiveness. Please join me in opposing expenditure for a new web which will be no improvement if data management continues as at present.

Below are three more of Jim's photos catching the spirit of this wonderful sport.

These are the Junior Olympics Festival in Rockport earlier this month. The bottom one should truly be titled "ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?". As noted previously, I cannot tell you names since "management" controlled scratch sheets in such a fashion to exclude DUFFSTUFF. It certainly was not an intentional act! Any questions?

The seventh PHRF NE race for Line #1 could not have been much better except for a mix up for David Hoyt and his Melges 32 #141 GOAT. Enough confusion drifted from the protest hearing about the proper windward mark in race #7 to drop GOAT into second place for Class 2 - (YELLOW) behind Cindy and Jud Smith sailing AFRICA # 50141 into first place. I believe that this was the only protest on our line for the regatta with David initiating action against the race committee. Official details are seldom laid out for us "outsiders", but the posted scores tell the story.

When I was a youngster racing boats at my old Chicago Yacht Club, anyone was welcome to sit quietly at a protests hearing to expand their racing knowledge. It is rumored that this is not the practice here in the East. It certainly is not obvious that people are welcomed to observe. I really found it rather boring after a while, but several people today expressed that sailors should be welcomed to sit in without comments! Why not ask "the boss lady" about it?

SHOUT #51918 a Farr 40 owned by Shout Racing was first in RED Class 1 followed by Tom Linkas' INDRA #522354. In Class 3 YELLOW John Downey was first with his GAMBLER #41711 followed by Bruce Dyson's 8 meter PLEIONE #38. Phil DiCarlo took first in GREEN Class 4 on HOTSPUR #40656 throwing out a second trouncing the fleet with Peter Engel's GOLDENEYE #40180 getting the second.

Joel Gardner and Cheryl Byrne served on the race committee mark boat while "Questy" Gringe and Ashley Boyle handled the pin boat. PRO Susie Schneider summoned Ashley to help on ETO with the confusion of scoring thirty-nine PHRF yachts which seem to hit the finish line simultaneously. Ashley helped Jennifer Tegfeldt and timer Brad Marvin support Susie's finish line calls. Susie directed me to help with a small task which I enjoyed doing (even though I muffed it). I was flattered to be noticed. During a brief lull, I jokingly asked how I was selected for this job. Her very serious answer was "you are the bottom of the barrel!" No smiles! Any questions?

See you next Saturday for our final sailing weekend this year. Maybe I will find some additional pictures by then! I might just scoop a shot or two from the uncommented EYC webb site since none of them are available for DUFFSTUFF directly. Any questions?

Please note that MADDIE's SAIL LOFT OF MARBLEHEAD has re-opened after being closed for several months. The POOPS recently met the new owner Loretta Lang and her very cute bar maid Ashley Valentini with her interesting tattoo. I told her I would mention her in DUFFSTUFF and try to make her famous. You know like "wanna be in the movies, honey?". Jim Ayer used that line for years between marriages. She said "I make myself famous!". Anyway, Maddie's is the building where Ted Hood operated his first sail loft. They are open daily for lunch downstairs and again at 1730 hours for dinner upstairs. Further, POOPS is a group formed by Jim Ayer and Roger Drumm for luncheon with an invited guest each week. They invited me a while back and cannot get rid of me. Prosperous Old Obnoxious People Socializing is the translation of POOPS.

With summer sailing ending, Gaele and Jim McCully suggest that DUFFSTUFF write about sailing things like "How to Time the Starts for Yacht Races". That should give Susie S. something else to think about. But of course, she does not have time to read anything I write.

PHRF NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONSHIPS - Day #2 of 3 - August 23, 2008 - Fourth, Fifth & Sixth Races for 38 Yachts on Line # 1

2008-08-24T00:31:00.004-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff August 23, 2008,

Another near perfect day of PHRF racing for Line #1. Three full races for four classes makes for twelve additional starts and timer Brad Marvin still has enough voice left to yell down four more on Sunday to wrap it up. Remarkable! That will be twenty-eight five minute start cycles in three days if all goes well. We have had remarkably few OCS starts requiring individual recalls AND NO GENERAL RECALLS AND NO "BLACK FLAGS". Again, remarkable!

I apologize for the lack of PHRF yacht details so far. My delicate new relationship with this APPLE MacBook Pro is evolving slowly. Maybe tomorrow will see more comfort and better reporting of the final results. I must locate the source of yacht detail reports which elude me right now. That is my objective for this report Sunday night.

PRO Susie Schneider again had Jennifer Tegfeldt with Bard Marvin and Ross Peterson and me on the ETO signal boat. Cheryl Burne was back on the mark boat with Susie's son Andrew working like the All American Sailer that he is. Andrew called our attention to the fact that our blue "RC" flag was hoisted upside down. My bad joke that it means "everybody must capsize" met again with the usual stoic looks from some of our crew. "Questie" Gring ran the pin boat with new friend Jay Perry.

Gaele McCully motored out all alone to visit with us on her new motorboat. Husband Jim raced with Seamus Hourihan on RUFFIAN #51373. Notably, David Hoyt sneaked past the finishing gang in first place on #184 GOAT in race #5 WITHOUT GETTING THE WINNER'S CANNON. We heard Judd Smith's informative call from AFRICA that "The Melges" (#184) had not gotten her well deserved first place cannon. Susie Schneider talked about giving her "two guns" when she won the next race. That gratuity was omitted after recognizing the confusion surrounding a "two guns" yachting signal.

Wind rolled around from 225 degrees magnetic at 1000 hours to 155 degrees at 1500 hours going further counterclockwise to 142 degrees as we wrapped up the day. Velocity grew from some 6.5 knots to around 12 per my notes. All in all a glorious time!

No current photos available again today despite the quiet clicking away of my censor. See you Sunday night!

PHRF NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONSHIPS - Day #1 of 3 - August 22, 2008 - First, Second & Third Races for 38 Yachts on Line # 1

2008-08-23T00:10:00.006-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff long after midnight during this first day of the three day PHRF N.E. REGATTA, August 22, 23 & 24th,

This picture is a big big fleet of little little Optis recently at the Junior Olympic Championship we helped manage with the Sandy Bay Yacht Club in Rockport, MA. I will not try to estimate the hundreds of kids and parents involved. Hundreds of Optis were on other race lines. We had over fifty 420 Championship boats and over thirty 420 Greens (beginners) on each of 17 starts attempted. Nine of these ended up under "black flags". The last start began with "black" in a dying breeze. Susie Schneider (PRO) announced her purpose of avoiding more delays from General Recalls. By this time the kids knew what was happening. We were trying to get in just one more race for the 420 Green fleet. They needed it to qualify for just one throw out. I thought it was handled very nicely except that the wind died completely before the "drop dead" time.

One of our knowledgeable critics expressed displeasure with "black flags" for such youngsters. However, I feel that its use here was most beneficial. These kids are very competitive and experienced starting in very big fleets. They saw the "black flag" work very well in Rockport. If that drives away a few of these young veterans, well....................!

Circumstances have conspired to keep me up rather late to produce at least a modicum of information about the start or this great PHRF regatta. I was precluded again today from current pictures and it looks like I must improvise without them. Picture prospects are slim now and probably will be for the rest of this summer. Maybe next year under a new administration? At least I can hope! I will try to be creative without any on-water help. The mysteries of politics confound me! It is comforting to know that my tormentor promises never to read anything I write.

So much for pictures, beautiful file transfers and amazing APPLE improvisations! It took me an hour or so tonight to figure that I had to fully reload my new APPLE browser SAFARI which worked (sort of) before I loaned this new box to APPLE for file transfers. Watch your TV to see how simple and cheap this process is supposed to be! I say the browser "sort of worked" because many web things I tried to review through SAFARI gave unsatisfactory results on the EYC web site. The "big boys" at EYC say this is APPLE's fault. I am beginning to think that these "boys" might be right. I will figure that out and let you know in the future. No one owning an APPLE admits to me anything but love and APPLE adoration. I will get there soon - I hope. I will not regret leaving behind all those viruses!

This ever so wonderful APPLE does not seem so wonderful just now. It balks at loading the very few pictures APPLE's "geniuses" migrated over from my virus infested antique DELL. I asked these nice young people how much of my "priceless" data they brought over. Like good sales people who tied me up 3 days doing a 30 minute job ( I would guess), they said "someone else did it and that they brought over everything that they could". I had experienced withdrawal symptoms with my ONLY TWO COMPUTERS quarantined. Here I am all downhearted, paid $4,000 to .................. well, you know what I mean! Like everything else, I will get over it.

Principal Race Officer Susie O. Schneider did her usual masterful job managing all the variables for three quite good races for four fleets totaling 38 yachts on Line #1 today. Our yachts are PHRF's biggest "ladies" ranging from handicaps of negative six to plus 102. There were two other lines for the smaller and the cruising yachts. As an old one-design sailor, these PHRF folks still seem like "private jokers" to me, but what do you expect from a Texan who should be doing rodeos not yacht races. Nevertheless, I am delighted to be right here.

Jennifer Tegfeldt functioned beautifully as "assistant PRO" while Brad Marvin and I did our little things as Timer and Flag Man. Ross Peterson handle the Operator/Gunner job so well that Brad and I almost forgot how much we enjoyed working with Rebecca Bennett much of the summer. She is out west at Arizona State studying to be an airline pilot. Ross was driving us south today to our designated area on the chart. I ask him if he were taking us to Boston. With a wonderful grin he said, "No Sir! Texas"! I liked that!

Tom Brennan and Cheyrl Byrne ran the mark boat with a lot of hustle managing weather marks on a double sausage courses of 1.8 then 1.2 nautical miles for the smaller boats. We had some VERY light breezes (3, 2, and then hardly any knots) at 220 magnetic. Later it came back over 12 knots and Susie gave all but the smaller of our four fleets a 2 mile windward course. Wind moved from the 220 direction to 135 and then back to 150 magnetic.

Jack Cochrane ran the pin boat with the able assistance of Rear Commodore Phil Smith. Susie took some interesting pictures of Phil hauling marks. I would love to show one of them here, but Susie made it clear this morning that the race committee is for her boat races and not DUFFSTUFF. The only brief verbal conversation we have had about my writing is something like "I have no time to read you". That sounds like I am doing something wrong. Comment if you like! I find it imponderable! N.I.H.?

Two interesting things came up today. Susie told everybody about the background of Cindy and Jud Smith's yacht named AFRICA. It stands for "Another Friggin' Racer I Can't Afford".

The other fun thing was a hail from an old friend racing on KATABATIC about a mutual friend. The three of us have sailed together on a very big yacht and some smaller ones all over the western world. Some of this was in "blue water" and two of us shared Hurricane Hugo at sea in 1989. Upon advice of council I am withholding both of their names for the time being.

From KATABATIC he yelled "I SAW ----------------------------ON TV". I yelled back "WHERE WERE YOU?". He said "ON A PLANE!". I asked "WAS HE IN JAIL?" as KATABATIC sailed away with the answer blowing in the wind! I will try finding this friend tomorrow and let you all know what I hear. Maybe! I would bet that many of you know who both of these people are already. Maybe I should have a contest! Reply here in "comments" please!

See you again Saturday night!

2008 Chandler Hovey Race - EASTERN YACHT CLUB - Sunday, August 17th

2008-08-17T21:39:00.006-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff, August 17, 2008, 2250 hours,

On the right is Jim McCully hauling inflated marks out to the race course earlier this week. Jim, Susie and Rebecca Bennett had motored our boats to Rockport last weekend for the Junior Olympics Regatta. This makes an unusual picture taken by J. P. Dunn of Eastern Point Yacht Club while at Sandy Bay Yacht Club in Rockport for that regatta.

It was another beautiful day on the water for eighteen "big" yachts racing a 10 mile long course starting near TINKERs gong. Weather could not have been nicer with wind at around thirteen knots from a little south of west and temperature in the mid 80s. The corrected handicap results below are "provisional and subject to modification" for these PHRF Divisions:

3 Multihull starters - winner Ted Grossbart in SUI 27 - AUDRA ;second #7 TRIAD for

Tom Cox. It was a rare site to see them and their exciting speed.

3 Class "A" yachts - winning in 2 races was Tom Linkas with # 52354 INDRA: second #9393 KATABATIC for Gordon Hall. Third was Seamus Hourihan in RUFFIAN #51373.

For 7 Class "B"s - Ward Blodgett #29 SIROCCO finished first but dropped to second on corrected time by about 1 minute behind Vern Polidoro in VIGILANTE #51563. Third was Gary Weisberg in #144 HEAT WAVE.

Jack Cochrane of EYC race committee had two other RC people, Joel Kinney and Russ Wells pulling strings to help him take home a couple of trophies which went with a first for #157 Class "D" FALL LINE. Jim Hosking got a first place gun in class "F" Cruising #30078 ARES.

Susie Schneider was her usual calm and effective PRO person. She squeezed in a second race for the big Class "A" boats and would have done that for Class "B" but their radio-con failed to get agreement. They just sailed home for the "prize giving".

Susie, Brad Marvin and I scurried around doing lots of jobs at once. Ross Peterson was our operator/gunner and will be with us for the rest of the season. Rebecca Bennett leaves tomorrow for freshman year at Arizona State.

Cherly Byrne was with Bill Schoenberg on the pin boat. Todd Sparling and Michael Costello handled the mark boat. The "lifting was quite light" for most of us.

Many of us will rturn next Fridayfor the three Day New England PHRF Championship. We expect most of today's yachts with an additional number joining in. We will run Line #1 which means that we get all the bigger boats.

I am calling it a day before midnight. See you back here Friday night!

MRA Series #3 Day #6 BRIMBLES Line & Comments - SATURDAY August 16, 2008

2008-08-16T22:57:00.004-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff Saturday August 16, 2008, 2345 hours,

No photographer today and my scanner does not want to work. So, without too much choice I decided on a J. P. Dunn picture of yours truly making like Brad Marvin. In his absence I did Brad's timer job at the Junior Olympic Regatta in Rockport earlier this week. We had 34 individual race starts (including those recalled or postponed before the last minute horn) in three days with six "Black Flags" by Susie Schneider, PRO. I am still hoarse! I do not know how Brad does it day in and day out.

We had seven starts today (no "Black Flags") for seven TOWNIES and two LASERS. We will be out there again for the CHANDLER HOVEY big boat race tomorrow. We will have fewer than seven starts for as many classes and Susie may elect to run them a second race which would be a total less than fourteen starts. Then next Friday, Saturday and Sunday we run the PHRF New England Championship for a greater number of big boats. Brad will be a little tired and hoarse before heading back to New Hampshire after Sunday's races.

The other picture above is from a rather peaceful day when Jim Ayer's camera caught "Questie" Gring and Steve Jeffries waiting for action in our pin boat. Today Bill Schoenberg did the pin alone while Brad, Susie and I ran the signal boat for the eight races. We three may do that again tomorrow unless some lonely nice person shows up to give us a hand.

For the seven TOWNIES today, David W. & Tracy Anderson had what looks like the best performance in WABI SABI # 2091 for a first and two thirds. Arthur O'Neil & Bob McGillivray had two seconds in FROLIC #2049. Martha and David Martini had a first and a third in PATIENCE #558. David Cooke(I think) got a first in AUF BLITZEN #3 without his mom, Jane. JEAN #77 took a second for Peter and David Maitland.

The two LASERs matched each other in four races with Wayne Colahan victorious each time in noname #192032 over Adam Dubitsky sailing close seconds in ICE PLANTER #154091.

All in all this was a delightful day getting most everyone back on shore before the storm rolled in. Sheila Widnall did not quite make it. She came in soaking wet with a great big smile after taking two firsts in their #130 IOD JAVELIN. Sheila was particularly proud of her husband Bill's two port tack starts getting them exactly where they wanted to be. They liked especially the victory over Bruce Dyson and Norm Cressy in #7 GYPSY. The Widnall's are heading for San Franciso this fall for the IOD World's Championship if I have the stories right. It also looks like the GYPSY crew will be going to Sweden for the 2009 World's which will be in the Spring. Wow! What a wonderful sport this is!

See you again tomorrow night!

USA JUNIOR OLYMPIC SAILING FESTIVAL-Massachusetts Bay Junior Championship-August 13, 2008-SANDY BAY YACHT CLUB, Rockport, MA

2008-08-14T11:52:00.018-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff August 14, 2008,

I waited overnight to get regatta pictures from Jim Ayer and J.P. Dunn who worked this event on ETO along with J.P.'s daughter Mariah and her mom, Andrea. Son Jared is one of triplets with Mariah and was sailing a Championship 420 in the regatta. His dad and I teased him about "I PROTEST THE RACE COMMITTEE" quoting him from Marblehead Race Week. He was caught over the start line under Susie's BLACK FLAG; he protested and was thrown out a second time. No Dunn protests were logged in this regatta. Susie used so many Black Flags that I lost count. (I really know the exact count, but I am humble tonight!)

For some unspecified reason Susie withheld my access to scratch lists; so I cannot identify any names of sailors or pick out Jared among the fifty-three Championship 420s in 88 pictures given to me by our "flag man" Jim Ayer and those from J.P.. Jim did that remarkable series above of the capsized 420. Notice the water spray as the boat was righted. These shots are not in exact sequence so you can "puzzle" about Jim's "puzzling" pictures. Would anyone like a custom wooden jigsaw puzzle? I believe the top picture should be second, but the blog software is very stubborn!

J.P. sent many nice shots including those above of the Optimist Prams and the one of our RC group waiting in the barn at THE WHARF RAT YACHT CLUB. It is a VERY VERY exclusive private private club owned and operated by Mary Ann and Ken Novak next to their beautiful home. A giant rat shape with big tail perches on top of the barn cupola.

We rafted our RC boats on the Novak's dock. This picture from there shows Susie interrupting John Rando, Andrea Dunn, Alison Becker, Jim Ayer and me who were looking at my blog on the new APPLE. If I did not know better, I would think that Susie does not appreciate my writing about her committee.

I somehow lost a picture showing me shouting my throat raw as timer imitating my old friend Brad Marvin. Brad had another commitment when we found out about this regatta. We really missed his presence.

Since I have only finish numbers, I will forgo listing scores for this JO. It would have been fun showing their names, but I could not get them. Wind was light and current very strong. Only one race could be started prior to the 1330 hours deadline. First placers were #5731 in 420 Champs, #94 in 420 Green, #185517 in LASER Radials and #175101 Full LASERs.

We heard today from Charley Cook at the Olympics canceling his promised blogs. Charley cites problems with people showing links to his stuff. Jim Ayer called to guess that Charley was referring to me. I removed my two links and added one recommended by Charley for the ISAF site. My many yachting links are shown at the bottom of each DUFFSTUFF blog.

We will work the BRIMBLES line Saturday if any racers show. The CORINTHIANS have not raced this summer to my knowledge. TOWNIES were somewhere else last week. One rumor has the LASERs being sent to TINKERS as was done last weekend. Cheryl Byrne is seeking a PRO so we do not know much. Brad and I plan to be there Saturday and again on Sunday for the Chandler Hovey big boat regatta. Joel Kinney tells me that he plans to see skipper Jack Cochrane's name on the big Sunday trophy. They race Jack's FALL LINE Colgate in Class "D".

See you Saturday night or Sunday!

USA JUNIOR OLYMPIC SAILING FESTIVAL-Massachusetts Bay JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP-AUGUST 12, 2008-SANDY BAY YACHT CLUB, Rockport, MA

2008-08-12T21:40:00.006-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff August 12 about midnight,

Another rewarding day on the water where drizzle fell and weather did major ups and downs. The wind was strong and seas were choppy in the morning. Decisions were made to hold Green 20s and Green Optis on the beach for the day. I personally doubted the wisdom of sending sixty-six other little boats into such challenges. Susie pulled off four competitive races which ended up in a foul current with little or no wind. A fair number of boats were scored Did Not Finish (DNF) because the specified time limit expired. My caution was wrong!

The first scheduled warning gun at 1100 hours was postponed until just after 1145. Some aggressive Green 420s were caught and sent home after they tried to sneak in with the "bigger kids". We ended up with a count of fifty-one Champion 420s and fifteen LASER Radials. The full LASERs chose the beach over the blustering wind and seas.

420 #5731 took the first day 1st and 2nd into a 5th, 1st, 3rd and 5th. Pretty good in a rather big fleet. #4647 also scored a 1st and 2nd in the three races Monday. They got a 5th and a 3rd before fading from the top boats in the 6th and 7th races. #4589 started with a 1st and bounced around behind the top leaders. Again, things were organized to preclude my getting even a soggy scratch list to show names with sail numbers.

In LASER Radials, #175930 dominates with six wins and a second in seven races with the prospect of more glory in the two additional races hoped for on Wednesday. After that the USA JUNIOR OLMPMIC SAILING FESTIVAL fades into history. The top scorers so far lack evidence of candidates for the 2nd and 3rd overall for the fifteen competitors.

The same race committee crew worked well with J.P. Dunn replacing Patti Page who is expected back Wednesday. Jim Ayer came aboard to do the flags in place of Mariah Dunn, daughter of J.D. and Andrea Dunn. John Rando came to add another level of "chiefs" over all of us "indians".

We all hope for better weather so that the "green team sailors" can get more racing. Green 420s need two more races to qualify for throwing out their worst score. That often yields some new surprises.

Come back after my Wednesday night blogings when I hope to have names to go with numbers.

USA JUNIOR OLYMPIC SAILING FESTIVAL-Massachusetts Bay Junior Championship-August 11, 2008-SANDY BAY YACHT CLUB, Rockport, MA

2008-08-09T00:07:00.009-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff about August 11, but it is now August 12 at 0230 hours,

We had a delightful time for the opening day of the JUNIOR OLYMPIC SAILING FESTIVAL. I will be brief tonight (this morning!) as it is very late and I have had a nice experience (in the drizzle) timing three full races for three starting fleets, 4 finish guns each and a total of about 80 or so little yachts. That would tally to about 143 youngsters on our line for forty-eight 420 Champs, fourteen 420 Greens and nineteen LASERs mostly Radial with 3 or 4 "full" types. I have not got a count of what looked like 100 plus Optimist Prams on the other lines.

My numbers and names today are vague or missing because of a large/lovely signal boat crew and a leader who seems to go out of her way to impede my writings. She says she never has time to read anything I write. Maybe it is just my imagination. I do not suffer from paranoia as far as I can tell.

My friend Brad Marvin was not here for this 3 day regatta and I was told to do his timing job. It went pretty well except for two mistakes made by me for which I was soundly scolded in many more words than "Duff, YOU ARE A BAD CHILD". The message is familiar.

I really enjoyed timing and coaching Mariah Dunn doing flags which is my regular job. I joked with Mariah about the dangers of hoisting a class flag upside down which does happen in the heat of battle. I said that if she did that, the entire fleet starting would have to capsize. Those of us downstairs were enjoying a chuckle at my silly joke when "someone" upstairs commented with authority that this was only DUFF's rule. No smiles from upstairs where the burden of leadership seems to take its toll.

I was denied access to scratch sheets so I have no names to report. In Champion 420s out of about 48 boats #4589 had one first and #4647 and #5731 each had a first and a second. Out of about 14 Green 420s we saw firsts for #15, #2559 and #94. #5082 had a second and a third. In LASER Radials, #175930 had two possibly three firsts. The scorers were using all of the data sheets so I gave up on my low priority interest. #180082 and # 190457 each had a second and a third in the data I could collect. My timing sheets were soaked beyond recognition. I "invented" a plastic covering sheet tonight to try out tomorrow.

We had Emerson T. Oliver (ETO) signal boat which Susan Oliver Schneider drove up to Rockport as her Principal Race Office (PRO) platform. Our regular operator/gunner Rebecca Bennett drove up with Susie. We had Andrea Dunn (EPYC & SBYC) as an assistant PRO , her daughter Mariah on flags, Patti Page doing auxiliary flags and Alison Becker (CYC) also assistant PRO. Andrea & Alison were with us in Marblehead for Junior Race Week and it was a pleasure working with them again.

Our Stephen Jeffries came as a Judge for the regatta on his rib M-JULIP which is the creative composite of his childrens' names. Jim McCulley had his wife Gaele's boat for mark duty assisted by a Rockport local Alexa Jorgensson. Anthony Santos of SBYC served as the second mark boat on the trapazoid course designated here as "F" which is "J" at Marblehead. We did not post directions or distances since the kids have no compass and can see the marks on the relatively short course.

Tuesday's racing call is 0900 hours for Race Committee. Jim Ayer is coming with his camera and Patti Page will sing at home and maybe rejoin us on Wednesday.

See you again tonight!

MRA Series #3 Day #5 TINKERS Line & Comments - SATURDAY - August 9, 2008

2008-08-08T23:43:00.011-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff - August 9, 2008, 2350 hrs, and again Sunday PM when by wireless router came back up,

This is a new challenge as my old DELL computer developed a terrible virus and I am trying to create this blog on a new APPLE MacBook Pro. It is different and quite a challenge. So far I am impressed with APPLE. Time will tell if the Spyware/Malware follows me in this happy journey away from Bill Gates.

We ran the TINKERS Line Saturday where two late arriving Vipers joined four others for a total fleet of thirty boats. Six Sonars, six J-24s, ten Rhodes 19s and two Lasers raced in individual fleet starts under PRO Rick Myers' leadership and Rebecca Bennett's cannon blasts. Assistant PRO was Alex Myers, Rick and Tracey's 11 year old Opti racer son. Mom did check-in, recording and helped with finishes. Niece Elizabeth Myers(age 10) and Alex's 9 year old sister Anne Myers kept Brad Marvin, Jim Ayer and me on our toes with questions. Jim Ayer's picture here is Anne on the left with Elizabeth. One question was, "Mr. Duff, why do you wear that blue blazer out here on a beautiful hot day like today?". My traditional answer was "breeding" which no one seems to understand. Another part is being a Texan who seldom feels the heat. Finally, I have worn a jacket since my military training in uniform beginning at age 13 during WWII.

"Chuck" Angle and Russell Wells ran the pin boat like old pros. Roger Drumm had the mark boat with three teenagers who showed him a few tricks known only to very experienced young Opti sailors. These kids were Christopher and Michael Drumm with Ian Barrows on a visit from the Virgin Islands. I met his mom who talked a little about an older brother, Thomas Barrows. He is in China racing a Laser for the USA in the Olympics. All four of these outstanding young sailors are products of Marblehead's PLEON YACHT CLUB.

Before leaving talk of the Olympics, "Chuck" Angle is traveling shortly to watch his son race n a Sonar in the para-Olympics next September. WOW!

The VIPERs had a disastrous 3rd race with three boats over at the start. All were disqualified as they failed to come back for a needed re-start. One was #55 PLAYSTATION Paul Zimmermann who had a 1st and 2nd before the DSQ. #60 noname John McCormack had a 2nd and two 3rds. #74 TUSKER Justin Scott had a 3rd, 1st and DSQ. #50 RATTLER Michael McCloskey got 1st after the 3 DSQs in the last race. #41 GERONIMO Duncan Mcintyre picked up a 2nd place.

Peter Frisch took the day for Sonars in #547 PENN PACKET with 2 firsts and a second without his regular super-helm Dru Slattery. Very well done! Larry Ehrhardt took a 1st and a 2nd in #690 RALLIE. Tyler Doyle #564 had a 3rd and a 2nd and did not finish the last race in noname. Sarah and Jon Sheldon recorded a 2nd and a 3rd in SHEARWATER #566. A 3rd each went to #362 BLUE STREAK for Miriam Jaffe/Marty Browne and for #374 PDsquared Peter DeWolfe/Bill Kauff.

J-24 #3525 VITAMIN J dominated the class with three firsts for Ted Johnson. Jeffrey Earl got a 3rd and two 2nds in #4119 USUAL SUSPECT.

The two Lasers got three minute dinghy starts with Wayne Colahan winning all four close races with noname #192032 over Adam Dubitske in ICE PLANTER #154091.

On Monday a group of us journey to Rockport Massachutts to manage a 3 day Junior Olympics Regatta. We will have our own ETO signal boat for PRO Susie Schneider, Andrea Dunn (EPYC), Rebecca Bennett(EYC-O/G) and me. I probably will be the timer since our regular Brad Marvin has another commitment. Jim Ayer will join us for Tuesday and Wednesday. John Rando will take over as PRO Tuesday afternoon when Susie rushes back to run the Betty Pleasants Memorial Women's Race.

Jim McCulley is taking Gaele's fancy motor boat for doing marks all three days. We will use regular 5 minute start sequences and run as many races per day as weather permits.

We anticipate about sixty Championship 420s with about forty Green Fleet 420s. The Lasers will be somewhere near that number. A couple hundred Optimist single hander prams will be managed by other people on other lines.

I plan a blog every night. Maybe my APPLE printer/scanner will be working for more of Jim Ayer's pictures by Monday night.

The APPLE gets better and better with a little practice. Do not forget to check the two Olympic links at the bottom of this blog! Charley Cook had a publication waiting for us when we got home from racing on Saturday.

See you all again Monday night!

MRA Series #3 Day #4 MIDWAY Line & Comments - SATURDAY August 2, 2008

2008-07-30T09:19:00.020-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff Saturday August 2, 2008, 2350 hours,

Above right is Bermuda's Bob Duffy next to his IOD ENCORE surviving hurricane FLORENCE in Bermuda 2006. Bob's picture came from PLAXO. The two photos of ENCORE are from Bob's International IOD Webb site. The boat was knee deep with water. Sinking was a constant threat. ENCORE survived.

Bob and I met many years ago when my racing leader Thornton Clark, my wife Debbie and I were hosted at the BERMUDA INVITATIONAL RACE WEEK. Champion calibre IOD racers came from Europe and all over the USA to race against Bermuda's best. They provided the boat, housing, race management and lots of parties. Thornton was my friend and enduring benefactor. He paid most of the boat bills and made us go fast all over the western world.

We three went to Bermuda several times over the years. Bob Duffy raced with us that first week as "owner's rep". We remain friends through all these years.

I used to say that Bermuda would be a very nice trip if we did not have to race those G.D. boats. That's just a joke! Please! Please! One of my "friendly associates" here in Marblehead may now write e-mails to everyone saying that I cussed and said naughty things in print.

Bob is an International Yacht Racing Judge now. He goes all over to help manage big yachting events. I ask his permission to use these pictures, but he has left the island for parts unknown with a visit to Pat and Hal Nesbitt who now live in Washington state. Hal raced together with us almost everywhere. We became friends when he lived and raced IC's in San Franciso. That is what they are called there. In Bermuda they are "One Designs".

LATE RE-PUBLISHED UPDATE WITH PERMISSION FROM BOB DUFFY AT HAL'S PLACE IN WASHINGTON STATE:

Hi Bob: (that is me Bob Duff)

My pleasure - go ahead. ENCORE derives from 'applause' go around again - that sort of thing.......and you re right, everything is the same color concept as the original #5 'COQUETTE'. We got permission form the Class to rename her and go back to the old number for COQUETTE. She was originally Bud Litchfield's number 13 BLACK MAGIC which was hit by lightning and the hull and deck melted.

Hope all is well.

Bob - sending this from Hal's house. I still have not been able to open your blog site. (This 'Bob' is Bob Duffy)

Needless to say, I am on line now to get Bob and Hal up to speed on this blog at :

HTTP://DUFFSTUFF-DUFFER1.BLOGSPOT.COM

Norm Cressy met Bob Duffy in Marblehead one year at an IOD World's Championship and asked if Bob was my father. Bob now claims that I am his grandfather.

One little observation from the pictures is that mast mounted compass on ENCORE. We had heard way back then that Bermudians never used compasses. One of their boats had hers mounted way up in the bow where only the "coast guard" could find it during a crawling safety inspection.

Knowing this and preferring to race "our way", I always carried a 5 inch DANFORTH on the plane and used it for "wind navigation" during races. Sheila Widnall had taught me this technique in our Worlds Championship bid in Scotland - 1975. Maybe I learned it from her or Pieter Mimno earlier. That was a while back. The Bermudians watched several of us race this way and learned over the years the potentails for a compass. Noting the mast mounting, I still prefer watching the wind from below in the cabin and talking about wind with the person on the helm. I noted that Sheila was doing just that today as she, Bill and crew took second in a fleet of 10 IODs.

Speaking of that, we only had one race at MIDWAY today because of a serious threat of weather. This developed later than expected, but PRO Jack Cochrane made the wise call to get everyone on shore before the threat could cause damage. Earlier he shamed CYC into running their TINKERS races. They did not want to go out at all because of the radar evidence of a bad storm. IOD skipper Greg Mancusi-Ungaro criticised our decision saying that we now have too much potentially bad information compared to the good old days when men were men and storms were fun racing at sea.

Brad Marvin, Arthur Saulsberry and I did the signal boat for Jack with Rebecca Bennett operating and manning the guns. Fritz Koopman ran the mark boat with help from Becky Wheatland. Frank "Questie" Gringe had the pin boat with Michael Costello.

You can see the timing details here on my

worksheet. Click on it to enlarge the view. Nine ETCHELLS started the
sixth race of their Series #3. "No show" today was series and summer leader #1105 CHEMICAL IMBALANCE Gregory & Hannah Hefler. RIVA #1221 was first for Wade Edwards and Justin Muller. Second was Mark Luckes in #575 PEREZOSO. Don Miller and Bill Douglas won third in VALKTRIE # 63.

As noted above, Sheila and Bill Widnall took a second in the 5th race for IOD series 3 in #130 JAVELIN. They were beaten out of first place by Bob Lyons and Fred Callori in #45 POMPANO. Third was #4 KALLISTE for Api Rudich.
Bruce Dyson was a "no show" for #7 GYPSY after winning IOD NOOD race week with a big help from Norm Cressy. Bruce was probably down east Maine today with his 8 meter PLEIONE after taking second in the MARBLEHEAD to CASTINE Classic Race.

Results from the Marblehead to Castine Race started by EYC off Marblehead on July 27th are available by clicking:

http://visitor.easternyc.org/files/Marblehead%20to%20castine%20results.2008.xls

The new seventy-six footer WILD HORSES owned by Donald Tofias took 20 hours 21:05 minutes to cross the finish line winning class "A" by 4 hours 20 minutes ahead of EYC's Bruce Dyson with his rather new 8 meter PLEIONE. EYC's Gary Gregory was third in 12 meter VALIENT. Interesting to note that Bruce left his IOD #7 GYPSY for Norm Cressy and crew to secure IOD first place in the NOOD Regatta.

Class "B" found Elizaeth Meyer winning with SEMINOLE built in 1916. She finished one minute AFTER Brooke Parish's MERMAID but got victory on corrected time.

Next Saturday takes us to the TINKERS line with crew call at 1000 hours. Then on August 11, 12 & 13th a few of us were invited to race manage a JUNIOR OLMYPICS REGATTA off Rockport, MA. These four days show only Brad Marvin, Jim Ayer, John Rando and me for the race committee. CORRECTION, it seems that the EASTERN YACHT CLUB ASSIGNMENT SCHEDULE resists management and apparently is not able to show the Rockport days. Brad, Jim, John and I are shown as scheduled on my personal spreadsheet which, for some reason, is of no interest to "management". I could say a bit more, but my well intentioned friends tell me to "SHUT UP". I have said too much already! I plan to be there all four days. August 11 is the "BETTY PLEASANT" regatta for women. I was told that this is a "ladies only" event but the "information manager" shows me scheduled there too. I think--------------okay Duffer, like they said "SHUT UP"! I will be in Rockport on August 12th.

A new feature for your convenience is a long list of FAVORITE YACHTING LINKS to be found at the very bottom of this blog. Scroll down there and prowl around the yachting internet. The AMERICA'S CUP MOVIES - 2007 offer several 20 minute noisy yachting excitements without commercials. I would love to add other good links. Please let me know about them.

MARBLEHEAD Senior Race Week NOOD - Day #4 - SUNDAY July 27, 2008

2008-07-21T07:12:00.015-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff July 27, 2008 2350 hours,

Above is my timer work sheet for the seven starts today on the OUTSIDE line. These finished a great week for everyone including the EYC race committee crew. See the Marblehead to Castine Race report published earlier for those details.

The only significant hitch occurred during the fifth STAR race sequence while finishing another fleet. A first place GUN was ordered by mistake causing a brief AP postponement and re sequence beginning at 1354 hours.

Incidentally, many of us wear "atomic" watches which get reset early every morning to GPS time. It is amazing that more racers do not use this fairly inexpensive timing trick. It helps make starts more precise as every watch gets reset daily to exact GPS time after midnight. We always count from zero-zero seconds GPS time and everyone is potentially on the same clock!

This photo from Duff archives shows Jon Cressy with my son Stephen Duff winning the Rhodes 19 National Championship in the late 1980s. I believe the other crew Stuart Wales was below sleeping off a very early golf game with his former sailor father Steve Wales. Jon won the NOOD R-19 Championship today over 32 competitors. Jon also won last year which shows again the rewards from past coaching by members of the Duff family.

The other big news from NOOD 2008 was the first place victory of IOD #7 GYPSY Bruce Dyson over Sheila and Bill Widnall #130 JAVELIN who was second-----------I know---------I know---------there is no "second" in boat racing despite the number of times I have been there!

Norm Cressy was the popular hero this evening at the CYC "prize giving" along with his two sons Eric and Jon. Norm sailed downwind legs all week on IOD #7 GYPSY with owner Bruce Dyson taking her upwind. Today Norm had to steer all the time. Norm won it all with a second place finish while Bruce was racing his fairly new 8 meter PLIONE to Castine, Maine. Ahead of Norm and GYPSY in the final race was Lori Bate in IOD #33 SMALL HOTEL.

Meanwhile Eric Cressy was third in the new Alerion Express 28 class throwing out a 3rd with # 1 & #2 tied for first place scores. Finally youngest son Jonathon Cressy won first out of 33 Rhodes 19s.

John Scott won VIPER 640 in #1 DR. WHO. Jeffrey Earl was the winner in #4119 USUAL SUSPECT J-24. Bill Lynn took first in #653 SONAR with Martha and Sam Altreuter second in RESONANCE #787. Martha Martini won TOWN CLASS with PATIENCE # 558. Peter Morgan won in J-105 #620 STEELAWAY III with Carol and Jon Wales second in BANTRY #189 followed by Brian Harrington #55 UPROAR from Piscataqua Sailing Association down Maine. Other firsts were Wade Edwards & Justin Mueller on #1221 RIVA ETCHELLS and John MacCausland with STAR #8195 ERIN .

With all the negative aspects of being involved with the EYC Race Committee it is nice to hear things like the following green e-mail from Greg Mancusi-Ungaro. He and wife Jenny, and daughters Eleanor(8) and Margaret(6) own both IOD #2 ELEKTRA and #46 EDEN:

From: The Mancusi-Ungaro's
Date: 07/27/08 06:41:18
To: rduff19@comcast.net
Subject: The blog is going great !

Thank you for all your kind words --

You should know that Eleanor reports that she was not sulking -- just sitting to leeward sighting the pin.

FYI – ELEKTRA is spelled with a K (not a C)

And Jenny is sailing with Danielle Ames (not Daniel) .

But those are just small corrections. The Blog is awesome.

Greg

It is quite obvious that she is Danielle (not Daniel) an outstanding racer even on an unfamiliar borrowed IOD EDEN #46. Danielle is an EYC member listed with Jeffery Lawson residing in San Anselmo, CA. It is rumored that she authored the Marblehead International One Design web site which is orphaned and in need of update. Maybe she could fix it for all of us even while away in California.

For full final NOOD results click:

http://www.sailingworld.com/nood-regattas/marblehead-ma/2008-marblehead-nood-regatta-final-results-1000063465.html

BTW - This blog is a personal exercise for fun with ABSOLUTELY NO ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL, ACKNOWLEDGEMENT or ENCOURAGEMENT by THE EASTERN YACHT CLUB. An attorney warned me that I endanger EYC with what I write. Let the record show that this is only my personal mutterings and does not represent the EYC in any way! As stated, it is just for fun!

A LATE ADDITION - Cheryl Byrne advised Monday via e-mail as follows and I quote:

"Our very own Rick Myers was awarded the Leonard Munn Fowle trophy and received a rousing ovation in appreciation for his hard work throughout the sailing community--junior AND senior."

Congratulations Rick!

See you next Saturday after the MIDWAY line with ETCHELLS and IODs! Crew call is 1030 hours. We welcome Jack Cochrane as Principal Race Officer striving to do as well as our regular "Black Flag" Susan O. Schneider.

MARBLEHEAD to CASTINE - CLASSIC YACHT RACE - SUNDAY July 27, 2008

2008-07-21T07:11:00.010-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff July 27, 2008, 1950 hours,
This first image is the scratch sheet for the Marblehead to Castine Race sponsored by the Castine Yacht Club (CYC) and Eastern Yacht Club (EYC) with assistance of Sparkman & Stephens and Doyle Sails. The occasion this year is a celebration of Olin Stephens' Centennial year.

The next sheet is my personal timer's work sheet documenting sequences for starting eight class "A" and seven class "B" yachts. Click on ether to expand the view.

David Bicks and Kevin Coady from CYC boarded ETO signal boat with coffee & donuts for the cruise to the starting area at Nun 2 east of Halfway Rock approximately 42 degrees 30.48'N/70 degrees 45.61W. Wind was about 6.1 knots at 225 degrees magnetic with the course to the first mark G "1" Whistle bearing 108 degrees. Total race distance is 143nm to finish at Hosmer Ledge Day Beacon.

Visiting officials from CYC were ferried ashore by Tom Brennan and Tad Gillespie on the REILEY mark boat. They returned with Halsey Brengle to support the final day of NOOD racing on the OUTSIDE line. Helping all day were Mike Piper and Russ Wells on the pin boat. For both events PRO Susie Schneider had a signal boat crew of Brad Marvin timing, Jennifer Tegfeldt, Tamison Johnson, Ashley Boyle and me supported by Rebecca Bennett and Ross Peterson operators/gunners.

I recently employed one of those little wheely things for luggage you see at the airports. I carry all my sailing gear that way including my new APPLE MacBook Pro computer. Rolling it down the dock this morning I was confronted by Dock Master Mike Smith asking for the extra $ 15 luggage fee. I did not pay!

MARBLEHEAD Senior Race Week NOOD - Day #3 - SATURDAY July 25, 2008

2008-07-21T07:02:00.012-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff Saturday July 26. 2008 2350 hours,

Before getting down to the NOOD, I want to share a bit more of my IOD history. This is old friend Thornton Clark and crew after winning a second place in the International One Design North American Invitational in San Francisco 1981. (I know---there is no second place in boat racing!)

Thornton is shown at his second favorite hobby-chasing naked girls. The attractive young female artist figured him out immediately. Sorry that Ron Young's head was chopped off by my little scanner. He was great crew climbing the mast to free a jammed spinnaker as we beat upwind in that normal 25 knot S.F. breeze. Next is Hal Nesbitt from S.F. who sailed with us everywhere including Marblehead and Bermuda. Ahead of me as always is my ex-wife of 25 years Debbie who could start an IOD better than any other person I know. She drove TANGO #16 frequently when Thornton was away in his travel business. Last there is me.

Next is an IOD photo stolen recently from Susie Schneider after the EYC Annual Regatta earlier this month. Shown is IOD #2 ELEKTRA crossing the finish line. Mother Jennifer and father Greg Mancusi-Ungaro are crewing for their six year old daughter Margaret while she roars across the finish line in third place class "D" PHRF. Eight year old sister Eleanor may be sulking down below while the little one takes her turn at the helm. ed-correction-Eleanor was sitting to leeward watching the pin end of the finish line!

Yesterday Jennifer and Eleanor crewed on their other IOD #46 EDEN with guest helm Danielle Ames. The family competition showed normal intensity as Eleanor threw water balloons brought specifically for dad and little sister on #2 ELECTRA. How's that for competitive spirit?

Racing today was comparable to the competitive spirit shown by the Mancusi-Ungaro girls. SAILING WORLD has already posted complete scores for the series available by clicking:

http://www.sailingworld.com/nood-regattas/marblehead-ma/2008-marblehead-nood-regatta-saturday-results-1000063463.html

My quick review shows John MacCousland way out front with STAR #8195 ERIN. Wade R. Edwards & Justin Mueller have ETCHELLS #1221 RIVA in a comfortable lead position. Peter Morgan leads the J-105s with #620 STEELAWAY III followed by BANTRY #189 Carol and Jon Wales in second.

The Cressy family is at it once again. Jonathan leads the Rhodes 19s in #892 SHEERBOOM while older brother Eric is in a close third place with the new Alerion Express 28 #26 SABRINA. Not to be outdone, father Norm sails with Bruce Dyson on IOD GYPSY #7 in a close tie for first place with Sheila and Bill Widnall in JAVELIN #130.

Continuing with my lifelong love for IODs, Jennifer and Eleanor Mancusi-Ungaro with Daniele Ames in #46 EDEN are tied for third place with my wonderful old TANGO #16 owned now by Michael Best and Rachel and Ian Morrison. Tomorrow will be lots of fun!

A very special Castine Yacht Club and Eastern Yacht Club regatta will start at 1035 hours off Marblehead tomorrow Sunday July 27th. This race brings Classic and Spirit of Tradition yachts downeast for a week of fun on Penobscot Bay in Maine. ETO signal boat and committee will start that race and then steam over a short way to conduct the last day of racing for Marblehead 2008 Sperry Top-Sider Senior Race Week/NOOD Regatta. For Castine details click:

http://www.castineyachtclub.org/

For more description I QUOTE (with a flaw in text presentation) FROM THAT WEB SITE AS FOLLOWS:

"The Castine Yacht Club in cooperation with the Eastern Yacht Club, Marblehead, and
the yacht designers Sparkman & Stephens (S&S), will sponsor the inaugural Marblehead to
Castine Race on July 27 and the ninth annual Castine Classic Yacht Race to Camden on July 31.
These events will commemorate the 100th birthday of Olin Stephens, widely acclaimed as
the preeminent yacht designer of the Twentieth Century, who designed many of the yachts
sailing in these races. Stephens plans to join the Castine celebration.

The races are expected to attract a spectacular fleet of Classic and Spirit of Tradition
yachts. According to David Bicks and Bob Scott, Chairmen of the events, some of the larger
yachts planning to race include DORADE, the famed 52’ yawl which launched Stephens’ career in
1929; ANNA, the 56’ S&S sloop built by Brooklin Boat Yard in 2007; WHITEHAWK, the 105’
ketch (styled after TICONDEROGA) built in Rockland in 1978; the 76’ (W-76 Class) sloop WILD HORSES designed by Bob Stephens (no relation to Olin); the 65’ SWAN EDEN designed by S&S;
VALIENT, the 64’ Twelve-Meter America’s Cup contender designed by S&S in 1970; the 58’ (PClass) JOYANT, a 1912 Herreshoff design; and three 46’ (NY32 Class) sloops designed by S&S in 1936 – SIREN, FALCON and GENTIAN."

In telling friends about this blog you need only remember to have them type "duffstuff" on Google or other Internet screens. A brief look will bring them to a complete access. All one must do is to wade through all the "HILLARY DUFF STUFF". She is a fellow Texan but no relation that we can identify. Remember simply "duffstuff" one word.

See you again Sunday night!

MARBLEHEAD Senior Race Week NOOD - Day #2 - FRIDAY July 25, 2008

2008-07-21T06:53:00.018-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff July 25, 2008, 2300 hours,

Going back in time on the right is me piping to the Scottish Storm Gods for a little breeze on "PLEON DAY" in the '70s. Wednesday was set aside then during Race Week to turn boats over to PLEON kids with limited adult intervention. Dave Smith loaned young son Jud his IOD #45 DRUMMER BOY ( before then and now named POMPANO) to race against all comers. Jud brought a Fernberg and a Cambell crew and was stuck with me representing the "older folks". I wish I remembered the crew's full names!

Jud's father Dave raced Thornton Clark's #16 TANGO that day. J.J. "Donnie" McNamara raced his own IOD with a fairly young lady friend who was our PRO today, Susie Oliver now Schneider. Both of those "ole" guys had won Olympic Sailing Medals in prior years. Other kids with "borrowed" IODs included the sons of both Bruce and Ted Hood if I remember details correctly.

The bagpipes did the trick with the wind and we had a successful race. Jud's only concern at all was "where are those two ole guys?" The Pleon kids did everything with hardly a spoken word. I recall that they let me set the foredeck. The "ole guys" stayed way back there and we won by a wide margin over everyone.

I taught the kids a few tricks that day. Ask me about it! Most of you recognize what my coaching has done for Jud! It could work for you too! BTW, this picture was in The Boston Globe.

Next we have my timer's sheet from
the first two races today of the 2008 NOOD Senior Race Week for each of three fleets. All were course "C" double sausages. Wind was 145 degrees at 7.5 knots shifting to 130 degree for the second set of races. Distance to the weather mark was 1.2 nautical miles shifting to 130 degree as the breeze diminished. Second races were shortened for finishes at the first leeward mark which is a single sausage.

Seventeen J/105s raced with Peter Morgan getting two firsts in #620 STEELAWAY III. Jon Wales took second and third in #189 BANTRY. Kevin Colcord got a ninth and a second in CIRCE'S CUP #51306.

Thirteen ETCHELLS raced with a first and a seventh to Ethan Doyle with father Robbie on board #1085 COUGAR. Wade Edwards & Justin Mueller took two seconds on RIVA #1221. A 3rd and a 9th were scored by Don Miller and Bill Douglas in VALKYRIE #63. STEAMBOAT WILLIE #26 showed an 8th and a 3rd for Hugh Greville.

Thirteen IODs brought on some surprises as Sheila and Bill Widnall took a first and a 12th on #130 JAVELIN. Bruce Dyson/Norm Cressy led the series with a 2nd and a first by #7 GYPSY. Two thirds were scored by Timothy Dittrich/"Oakie" in #51 SAGACIOUS. POMPANO #45 for Bob Lyons and Fred Callori scored a 6th and an 11th as compared to the win by Jud Smith documented with my pipes back in the '70s.

Tomorrow and Sunday these three classes with be joined by an expected 12 STARS. Race committee with PRO Susie Schneider expects Ashley Boyle, Cheryl Byrne, David Hooks, Mike Piper, Jennifer Tegfeldt, Brad Marvin timing and me on flags

APPEAL TO RACE COMMITTEE MEMBERS

If you are like me, you stopped wasting time on easternyc.org web site a long time ago. I have encouragement for you and a suggestion for "painless" access. If you use the following link you will bypass all the "passwords", "Ashore", "Afloat", "Planning Committee", "tennis" and "swimming" clutter and get right down to the essence of a YACHT CLUB information system.

Before proceeding, when you see the clean white spreadsheet, remember to click those two little stars at upper left and add this route to your "FAVORITES". For a glimpse of that readable/printable Assignment Schedule for 2008 (not 2005 as it said last week) click:

http://visitor.easternyc.org/files/EYCRC_2008_Assignments_v2.xls

I think you will like it now.

See you again tomorrow night!

MARBLEHEAD Senior Race Week NOOD - Day #1 - THURSDAY July 24, 2008

2008-07-21T06:49:00.007-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff July 24, 2008 2300 hours,

The first races of Marblehead Senior Race Week/2008 Sperry Top-Sider NOOD Regatta at Marblehead were abandoned today because of serious weather conditions. Tomorrow we may have sixteen J/105s, fifteen ETCHELLS and twelve INTERNATIONAL ONE DESIGNS (IC-IODs) if the weather allows. Then on Saturday twelve STARs should start racing. It promises a good time for the EYC committee on the OUTSIDE LINE.

Pat and Jim Ayer are scheduled for the mark boat with Paul McCauley. I am counting on Jim for some more of his great pictures but there was rumor of illness. My schedule shows Rear Commodore Phil Smith with Jim McCully on the pin.

ETO will have PRO Susie Schneider, timer Brad Marvin, Ashley Boyle, Jennifer Tegfeldt and me on flags. Cheryl Byrne was running around this afternoon trying to steal Ashley from the signal boat onto the mark boat. I think Cheryl may be joining Paul on the mark boat with the potential absence of the Ayers. We shall see.

While we do our thing, RHODES 19s and TOWN CLASS will perform on HALFWAY ROCK LINE. TINKERS LINE will host VIPER 640s, ALERION EXP28s, SONARs and J/24s.

Managing all of this is Peter "LUIGI" Reggio. We hear about him in Charley Cook's blog about their work together at the China Olympics coming up in August.

With no racing to report, I delved back again in my archives to show you my first IOD racing in San Francisco in May 1958. This is Ernie Brown's IC #80 FLIRT headed upwind with spinnaker toward Japan after a fleet of starboard tack STARS were just starting going west on our same finish/starting line. Not very thoughtful race committee management! That will not happen here tomorrow.

Next I picture my only "gold medal" from the 1975 IOD World Championship in Edinburgh, Scotland. Thornton Clark, my former wife Debbie and I had qualified in Marblehead for a shot at the Worlds. Our regular crew, Phil Sommerby, declined to travel to Scotland. Desperate for good crew, we chose Sheila and Bill Widnall from among the dozen who wanted to go with us. Steve Wales went to Scotland and took the win. I think that we were second, but "there is no second in a boat race!"

I have some other ancient mementos for tomorrow. Meanwhile, I look forward to a great day of racing!

PLEON-MARBLEHEAD Junior Race Week - last Day #3 WEDNESDAY July 23, 2008

2008-07-21T06:45:00.014-04:00

Howdy from Bob Duff - July 23, 2008 - 2250 hours,

These photos by Andrea Dunn (EPYC) tell a nice story about yacht racing. Andrea worked with us on the EYC signal boat for Junior Race Week-2008.

Eighty-six 420s and fifty LASERS kept us busy at area "A". These, along with 118 OPTIMIST prams are shown scattered on beaches at Eastern Yacht Club and other harbor spots. At an appointed time, a cannon signaled the harbor start each morning.

I had another of Andrea's photos of the 66 Champion 420s crowding the start line. A beautiful sight! I planned to use it right here but the blog system sent it off to cyberspace. I will save it and some other good ones from Andrea and Lou Guirino (CPYC) for future use.

This shot singles out 420 #4647 sailed by Andrea's son Jared and crew Braely Jelmberg. They are cruising around getting ready for a start. We saw and heard a few crashing collisions. Timer Brad Marvin is appalled by the disregard of racing rules by a lot of these youngsters.

In a few of the Championship 420 races we reverted to the BLACK FLAG needed to get a fair start. BLACK FLAG rules let the RC identify any boat over On the Course Side (OCS) triangle during the last 60 seconds before a start. They are notified to retire with a penalty score of last place +1 until the next race.

With Mom watching and snapping photos, Jared Dunn and Braely Jelmberg were seen OCS and were disqualified. With big grins they yelled "WE PROTEST THE RACE COMMITTEE". They did just that in writing! A hearing with witnesses supported the disqualification. Their 10th place overall would have been better without the OCS, but as someone once said, "there is no second place in a yacht race". Jared's father, John Peter Dunn sent me Andrea's photos with the following quote:

"I heard about Jared protesting the RC... that's funny: the kind of mistake you make once in life... it's great to be young. "

At this point my old DELL froze! I can guess that lightening zapped it during the thunder storm. I am back now to re-publish while another storm is crashing around. Anyway, the computer is up!

For complete OFFICIAL scores from Junior Race Week click:

http://www.pleon.org/page/3889

Regatta first place winners are as follows:

--------------------SAIL#

420-CHAMPION--4566--CONNOR BAIR-CUCCHIARO & GRAM SLATTERY-PLEON-YC
420-GREEN-------4730----BRIAN FELSENTHAL & JAKE FISHER--PLEON-YC

LASER-FULL----101194--EVAN SIEPERT---------------------------PYC(Maine?)

LASER-RADIAL-186544--CALLIE NAUGHTON---------------------PLEON-YC

LASER-4.7-------8--------HANNAH LYNN--------------------------PLEON-YC

OPTI-CHAMP.BLUE----14414---THOMAS SAFFORD---------------SANDY-BAY-YC

OPTI-CHAMP-RED-----14141---JACK MCGUIRE-------------------CAMDEN YC

OPTI-CHAMP-WHITE---------16327---MATTHEW SAFFORD------SANDY BAY YC

OPTI-CHAMP-ALL------------14141--JACK MCGUIRE--CAMDEN YC
OPTI-GREEN-CHEERIO--------13657--PETER REMSEN------------ANNISQUAM YC

OPTI-GREEN-FRUIT-LOOPS-8921-JAMES COLLINS----MANCHESTER SAILING CLUB

If I read it correctly, Jack McGuire won the overall OPTI championship in addition to his victory in RED!

Our race committee gang Wednesday was the same as Tuesday except Andrea went back to her nursing job and we were joined by Garret McKinnon (an OPTI sailor come to watch the "big boys & girls), Lou Guirino's wife Ann Mulvaney and their young friend from Puerto Rico, Jose Luis LaSante.

I will be back here again Thursday night after the first day of Senior Race Week/NOOD Regatta!