The next day we had more wind for sure and I knew this would be a new day. It was the hottest day of the year with a fresh breeze from the West. We got some nice starts and tried to figure out the gear changes. The I20/M20 needs a lot of adjustments to get in the correct grove. I am of the "if it does not work, try something else" school. And after a while we started to feel in the groove. There were still many big shifts and we generally played the left side with more use of the right side later in the day. It was a great day of racing on a bright sunny day. Occasionally we could pass the excellent M20 sailors on a downwind, but it was rare and what you needed to do was pick your jibe point exactly. I haven't raced the I20 much but I was a bit disappointed in how long it took to get up to speed with the asymmetrical even when it was windy. You just don't get a lot of chances to make a lot of jibes. Chuck Gorgen won two races this day and sailed very consistently. Whenever I thought we had him he would grind right back up.  Kevin Caulfield won the other. Emily Green, John Hayashi and Grant Frautschi all had good legs. Emily Green was very impressive and I kept my eye on her.  Andy Graff (of the UW Sailing Team) was doing a great job in the front of the boat for me, and was a hiking machine, we got a 3-4-3 and were in the lead at some part of all these races as I remember.

On Wednesday there was little to no wind, but the RC set up a start in a fading Northeasterly, it was much much cooler and it was quite a change from the heat and humidity of the previous day. We nailed a nice start and jumped out in front by a fair amount. By the weather mark we had control of the race but never quite knew how well we could do with the asymmetrical in these conditions.  The M-20s were cruising in a straight line and it looked to be an easy day to get hung out to dry if you missed a puff downwind. We battled and then finally got roared over by a huge clump of boats and decided it was too light to be worth going around another time in zephers.  The race was abandoned and the regatta was over.

The M20 sailors I talked to were happy to be back racing with the ILYA. It seems like the fleets can co-exist.  Marketing to young ILYA sailors needs to be done. The I20/M20 is a difficult boat to sail well as there are so many gears. But once you get the hang of it, it is a real thoroughbred racing machine.  Hopefully with normal lake levels more of the Hoofer boats can get utilized by young UW Team sailors and the fleet will develop the next generation of M20/I20 racers. Next year we need more then 13 boats to make it up to Minnetonka, it will be a critical year in the eyes of the ILYA and also in the eyes of the young gun racers of the ILYA, who will realize that C-boats and E-Scows are not where it is at!