Panic is for sale. It looks like a nice boat.

Update: Boat has been sold to John and Richard Osborn from Sobstad in Barrie. It is now called "STONKIN”.

Yesterday I sent out the last three buttons I had. I even had to give up my own. We have had unprecedented support this year from the members and I would like to personally thank each and every person who has taken the time and effort to support the Class. Don't worry though, I can make a few more if needed. Now I have to decide what colour to use next year.

Rick

From Ted,

Hey Rick,

It took me 2 looks but i found 5. Damn merkins. Not sure if they are the same as your 5.

1…Deck winches…check
2…Through-hull for running backstays…check
3…Backstay whip…legal
4…Second set of spreaders…check
5…Stanchion height…appears to be legal

Cheers,
Ted
Azura-K25
LMYC

From Joe,

Rick,

Wind Indicator…check
Masthead Spinnaker…check

Joe

Matt has also told me that they have an oversize spinnaker pole and that the keel, rudder, and cockpit have been modified. This boat appears to be quite pimped out. Nice sails too.

Dear Rick:

My wife (Stephanie) and I are the proud new owners of “Spare Change” which we’re keeping in Chester Basin, NS.  I was surfing the web today and found your web site.

Mike

Congratulations on your new boat and welcome to the Kirby 25 fleet.

It seems the recent events at Frenchman's Bay have fired up some of the fleet. From Pat Wachholz in Barrie:

Stick got spanked at the FBYC regatta and is having a tough time with taking heat from the likes of Hughes and Viscount....anyway in keeping with an interclub rivalry, Dalhousie and Ottawa showed up in force at Frenchman's and Bohica, well let's not talk about them too much...still kind of a sore spot...fortunately Doug and crew held out for a second and kept BYC's name in good standing...

In true Frenchman's style of yesteryear, Barrie will be back in force for the Regatta on September 16/17 2006 with five boats on the line, using Frenchman's as a yardstick, there could be at least 15 Kirby's on Kempenfelt Bay in September...five from here and ten travellers. So, that's Doug, Tangent, Breezin, 40 Yard Bin and this Blue boat...a new Blue boat. Yup, John Osborn is back in the fleet after having picked up a Kirby down in Kingtson...Take that Bohica...you big meanies...It's going to be a blast.

Remember everyone, if you'd like to come up a little early, just get in touch with me and we can arrange it. If you're short a trailer, we could probably fix that too. I'm going to pick up a fellow in Midland...

See you all in September, good luck at Dalhousie,

Pat
40 Yard Bin

We've had the hope of 15 boats before but this time it looks like it could actually happen. That would be amazing. Lets do it.

We have arranged to have a separate course at the Cornucopia Regatta for the Kirby 25 fleet. Tom Taylor will be running the K25 racing course and he assures us that he will run 4 races on Saturday and 3 races on Sunday, weather permitting. If the NA's was any indication then this should be a great regatta with plenty of racing, partying and lots of shenanigans. There has been quite a bit of interest shown recently by the Kirby fleet and word has it that there have been enquiries from boats not seen at regattas this year.

If you haven't attended an event lately now is the time to get your boat on the start line. The Kirby 25 fleet is on fire and waiting to see you.

The Annual General Meeting was held at the North American Championships recently at Frenchman's Bay. It was short and sweet with Paul starting by letting everyone know that he was a bit tipsy and if anyone wanted his job as President then they better speak up. Paul was unanimously endorsed as President for another term. Simon Warren was subsequently strong-armed into taking the Vice-President position since Chris has moved on to other venues. A big thanks to Chris for all his effort over the past several years. He was the person originally responsible for getting the new website going which I have taken over. There is no doubt that the website has been key to improving attendance at regattas and communication among the members.

It was agreed that the Class would reimburse Jamie the $200.00 that he had spent previously to obtain the keel templates. These now belong to the Class and are available to the members for fairing their keel. There was a half-hearted discussion about a third halyard for the spinnaker, which went nowhere. It's apparent that the procedure for Class Rule discussion is broken and out of date. However, attendance is up and the racing is very competitive so it can't be all bad.

To borrow a quote from the Bender. The 2006 North American's are now in the history books and WOW!, what a great regatta. We had twelve boats and the weather was perfect. Results are posted and as our new Champion says, they're just "a bunch of old guys out for a sail." Well it turns out that Mark Bowman was able to somehow gather together the boys who wrote this little ditty. They managed to show everyone that they actually do know what they are talking about and promptly laid a thrashing on everyone.

We finished fifth and surprisingly we are happy with that because we felt that we sailed really well. The racing was incredibly close all weekend. The mark roundings were crowded but for the most part everyone played nice and civility seemed to be the order of the day. There was an unfortunate incident on Sunday where Summersalt plowed broadside into Pablo and a sail said goodbye to this world. No one was hurt so that was good.

The party on Friday and Saturday was classic K25 and went well into the wee hours. The blender came out as usual and plenty of Mount Gay Rum was put to rest. Ramzi was last man standing at 4:30 am Friday night and was bested by Simon Krall on Saturday night. I don't know how they do it but when the gun went off it was game on. Paul had the best quote of the weekend when I saw him shaving Sunday morning and he said" I was so drunk I thought I was going to die."

I can honestly say that this was one of the best regattas I've ever done. The race committee was very good, the weather was excellent, the racing was tight and the shore party was amazing. Kudos to the Summersalt crew for the best accommodations ever seen at a regatta.

Thanks to FBYC for hosting this event again and all the boats and crew that attended. It's the people that make the event worth doing.

Pictures are posted …minus the Ashley/Graham "too hot for the kiddies" show.

Our friend Todd Swan writes:

Rick,

We are going to be at your club for the Cornucopia the Friday before. Just need to know what a good time might be to arrive and plop her in. Also do I need to bring anything in regards to that and putting the rig up?

Have had no luck getting on the DYC website, do I need to pre-register before the event?
 
Swany
Yellow Max

Excellent news. If anyone need straps and you have your own I would suggest that you bring them. Mast crane is no problem. It turns out that they changed the website address and I hadn't changes the link so I will be doing that now. The new address is

www.dalhousieyachtclub.ca

Hi Again Rick,
 
It was great seeing you guys down at Frenchman's Bay last weekend!  I'm a convert now and I'll be at Dalhousie and Barrie even if I have to swim.
 
We've got some pictures here.

Dwight Yachuk

Matt Simington sent us these great pictures of his boat "Run".

I asked Matt what the deal was and he replied that he and his brother own the boat and they were racing in a "Lady Skipper" race and the young lady driving the boat is his wife's sister. This is a rather nice looking boat but if you study the pictures a little closer you will see some obviously "that's not allowed" things.

I've seen at least five, can you find them?

A bit late but nevertheless.

Here we go again. It seems as if we just did this. Word is that we have 11 boats confirmed and Under Cover is questionable right now. I've recently had conflicting reports on whether or not we will see them there. We might possibly see a few stragglers who haven't been in touch for a while. This fleet hasn't seen 11 boats since the 2002 NA"s at Bronte Harbour. We don't have a record of 12+ boats at a regatta on this website. This should be a helluva good regatta so if you're on the fence get your boat there. We have our own course and the racing should be really good.

I think our lease on the Invitation Challenge Shield is expiring but we aren't going to give it up without a good fight. So bring it on.

Danger! Danger!

For those of you too young to get the humour in this.

The Insanity team has issued an "Oh, by the way" warning for those planning on trailering their boats to the Barrie regatta.
It seems that there is a very low bridge that cannot be avoided.

Ensure that there are absolutely no protrusions extending above the pulpit or stanchions or you will lose them.

They seemed pretty serious about this so take heed.

So another Level Regatta goes in the books. Where is this summer going? Things started off with a bit of a bang, or almost bang when Insanity's trailer tire shredded on the 400. Luckily the tire held together and they managed to get the spare on and all was well—almost. We DYC members have been telling the out-of-town boats for years that they should put in at DYC and sail down the lake to Youngstown. To our surprise and joy Insanity had planned to do just this thing this year, until they found out that our crane was broken. Ouch. So pack up the boat and drive off to Youngstown. We almost had Ashley talked into sailing down with us but I'm sure that Debbie had the hammer on her.

After repairing the mast sheave we started off to Youngstown in typical fashion and had a nice pleasant sail happening under spinnaker. When the heat got to be too much we stopped for our traditional swim and had an excellent time. Once underway, and just in time it turns out, we were hit by the tail end of a pretty nasty storm. It was quite fun sailing in the torrential rain while the sun was shining on us. We had the most incredible rainbow appear once it passed and the rest of the trip was a nice easy sail into Youngstown. Customs/Immigration was a breeze due to the pre-registration they have now. I thought for sure that Homeland Security was going to pull me aside but luckily it didn't happen. Whew, cornhole still intact.

The party on Friday night was a bit laid back but everyone had a great time. I think the anticipation of racing was holding most back from really letting loose. Saturday dawned bright and beautiful and there was plenty of wind. The racing was intense and mistakes were immediately costly. Jamie and his team on Marauder, including Jeff Kirby, were on fire. They seemed to be pointing in another league from everyone else. We assumed that the new guy had something to do with it but Jamie isn't talking. Big thanks to Marauder for taking Jeff under their wing and showing him a great performance on Saturday. We had a couple of strange round-ups and bad tacks which really affected our standing. Like I said, mistakes were costly and we weren't the only ones making them. There was quite a commotion just off our leeward stern during the second race and we just caught the action where Ruby Tuesday almost punched a hole in the mid-girth of the Bender. Close call for sure on that one. As usual Insanity showed everyone how it was done and had a commanding lead after the first three races.

The party on Saturday really heated up and the true Kirby spirit started to show. The K25 get-together was better than ever so make sure to check out the pictures in the gallery. Max was wasted (Sorry Maxie boy) and had the crazy eye. The highlight of the night for sure was Paul the human blender. Time for some new batteries for that portable unit, or I can try not to forget the real blender again.

Sunday was a different story altogether. Let's just say light and variable was a kind description. We had nothingranging to about 2 knots with as much as 50 degree shifts occurring. The committee started the race but around the second mark things died down to pretty much nothing for what seemed like forever. Floating around for more than an hour was painful to say the least. I had commented after the day that we should have thrown out the anchor and it turns out that the boys on SummerSalt had done just that. A nice move and good use of the rules. We somehow managed to find ourselves in what seemed like a really good position when the wind came back. We were split from Insanity quite some distance and it became a drag race to the finish where, surprise surprise, they nicked us at the line to take the win. If we'd have taken that race we would have locked up third place. We, and most of the other teams, thought that we had third anyway due to the way that they traditionally score at the Levels. There was a 3 way tie for third and usually the last race determines the winner. Even though it didn't go our way this year I was glad to see that they changed the scoring to fall in line with the RRS. Ruby deservedly took third and that's the way it should be.

Of course Insanity took the big prize and I don't think anyone will argue that they didn't deserve it. I told you they would be hard to beat this year. Jamie and his Marauders took second and rightly so. They were easily the second best team on the weekend but we suspect that Jeff Kirby may have had something to do with it. Just kidding guys, good job.

From all accounts it was another great Level regatta and we also got to meet Todd Swan who subsequently sent me this email:

Rick,
 
It was great to finally get a chance to meet some of you Kirby folks this past weekend at Youngstown. I Hope to make the Corn Cup, if I can swing things domestically and get the crew to commit.
 
Swany
 
PS: I guess you guys passed the strip search and cavity check.

Thanks to all the boats who attended for making this such a great event. Results are posted. See you all at Frenchman's.

Jeff Kirby sent this link to the photos that he took at the regatta.
He has been ordered to provide a full account of his adventures at the regatta. Stay tuned.

Our pictures are in the Gallery here.