Editors Note:  This article was written by Karl Pomeroy several months ago.

What a summer it was!  The opportunity to get back into racing after a 10+ year absence, a chance to teach my 10 year old son about the sport I love and the culmination of winning the Harbor 20 B fleet made for a near perfect summer.

I am first off grateful to all of the wonderful H20 sailors who welcomed my son Cole and I into the fleet.  It all started with a call to Peter Haynes who is simply the best advocate a fleet could ask for.  2 weeks later we owned a H20 and by May we sailed in our first race.

My first reaction was “I forgot how to sail after all these years”.   Well, some great advice and fantastic seminars and then we started to improve.  Cole truly was having fun getting on the boat every night and sailing with Dad!  I think my favorite part of the H20 fleet is from Memorial Day to Labor Day you can race 5 nights a week.  Couple that with the great friends, and wonderful dinners and you have a near perfect summer.

A pleasant additional thing happened we got faster!  I was amazed that every time out we learned something that we were able to build on.  In June I went to the Dave Perry seminar and got some of the best advice I have received in my sailing career and we turned that into our first big win a week later in the Stars and Stripes Regatta.

A bunch more sailing and we reached the important Fall Tune Up, Schock Memorial and Championship Regatta.  In the Fall Tune-Up and Schock Regatta we simply were inconsistent and frankly that had to do with bad starts.  We have all been there but in the H20 I have finally learned my lesson.  Good starts equal good finishes and unfortunately bad starts tend to equal bad finishes.

After a frustrating weekend before the championship we committed ourselves to quality starts and I can tell you in the Championships I felt we had 5 good starts and one bad one.  The bad one was by far our worst race.  If I were to give some advice to a new H20 sailor it would be as follows:

1. Sail the boat a lot in summer races and ask for help!  This group of awesome people wants to assist you in improving.
2. Attend the seminars – I cannot tell you how much of a difference they made in our speed over the summer.
3. Good Starts!  I can’t stress it enough.  You win and lose races on the starting line in a fleet of boats that are very close in speed.
4. Have fun!  Most of all I got to spend the entire year sailing with my son and creating memories I will never forget.

Thanks Harbor 20 fleet #1 for making 2010 one of my best sailing memories ever!

Karl Pomeroy

The NOR’s and Entry Form for the 2011 SCYA Midwinters is now available on the Harbor 20 Website.

2011 SCYA Midwinters Page

The regatta is scheduled for February 19 and 20, 2011 and is a Fleet 1 2-day High Point Event. The B Fleet winner will be promoted to the A Fleet.

The deadline for entry has not been defined by the BCYC, however, please note that the entry form is not online, so you must print out, fill out and bring (or mail) your entry to the BCYC.

Visit the Harbor 20 Website for all the links to the yacht club and the regatta forms.

The NHYC Winter Series #4 was held on Sunday, February 6th – the last of a 4-day series of races.  My last “event” was the Strategy & Tatics Seminar by Peter Haynes the previous Sunday, and I was fresh with ideas, enthusiasm and eager to “try out” all the new info I learned at that Seminar. I’d like to share my perceptions of part of the first race since I learned so much in that 20 minutes of sailing with the A fleet!

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Jim Kerrigan, Staff Commodore Phil Ramser & Dottie Munroe

On Sunday, February 7th, the new Ted Munroe Perpetual Trophy was awarded to the A and B Fleet winners of the 2011 NHYC Winter Series.

In attendance for the inaugural presentation of perpetual Trophy was Dottie Munroe, wife of the late Ted Munroe. Presenting the awards was NHYC Staff Commodore Phil Ramser.

The winner of the A Fleet was Jim Kerrigan, who squeezed out second and third place winners Tom Schock and Karl Pomeroy.

The winner of the B Fleet was Gale Pinckney who, ironically, is the new owner of Ted’s Harbor 20. Hellen Duncan and Win Fuller took second and third place in the series.

Staff Commodore Phil Ramser, Gale Pinckney, Pinckney's son, Dottie Munroe, & Jon Pinckney

The new trophy was designed and created by Peter Haynes and will be owned by the Harbor 20 Class Association and will be awarded each year to the winners of the NHYC Winter Series for both A and B classes.

The NOR’s and Event Entry forms are now available for the W.D. Schock Memorial Regatta.  Forms are available from the NHYC Website.

According to the NOR’s, the “First warning for S35, S20, H20 [is] 1200 ” . This changes the original time as posted originally on the H20 website schedule.

You can register online here.

The NHYC Winter Series #4 has been changed to a High Point Event to make up for the cancelled Winter Series #2.

If you haven’t already, sign up here.

The rain threatened, but never succeeded on canceling the festive Portmouth Folly Regatta hosted by the Balboa Yacht Club on Saturday, December 18th.

The Regatta consisted of two classes: Keelboat Fleet (which included the Harbor 20’s) and the Centerboard Fleet.  A total of 9 Harbor 20’s participated along with a Thistle and a Santana 20.

The race committee selected an exciting (roughly) windward / leeward course taking the fleet outside the harbor to the J mark and back to finish. With winds at about 10-12 knots, blustering and threatening weather, and swells that occasionally broke over the and into the boats, the Harbor 20’s proudly and confidently tacked up the channel, out of the harbor, around J Mark, and back down the channel to the finish. Each race lasted about 40 minutes.

The Harbor 20’s held their own against the Santana and Thistle (finishing 7th and 8th overall). The Harbor 20’s were assigned a PHRF rating of 92, the Santana a 90.1 and the Thistle an 83.

Tucker Cheadle skippering #168 with Tom Schock as crew took 1st place, Karl Pomeroy (#262) with crew Cole Pomeroy took second, and John Whitney (#130) sailing single-handled finished 3td place. Full results are available here.

Nik Froehlich (#109) sailing with Mindy and her parents and uncle, was awarded the “Most Festive in Keelboat” award.

Before the awards ceremonies, the kids lead all the sailors with a unique rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas.