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Seminar: Racing 101—Introduction to Racing
April 11 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Speakers: Larisa Fry & Bob Jones
Date: Thursday, April 11th 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Venue: SISC Clubhouse
TO REGISTER, please email: courses@saltspringsailing.ca
About the Talks: Both Racing 101 and 102 sessions will hopefully give you a basic understanding and the vocabulary of what this thing is that we call racing. We hope you will gain a little knowledge, some interest and confidence to consider putting yourself out there, be it on the bar stool watching, as crew or including yourself as one of our Salt Spring Sailing Club Racers.
Designed to appeal to people who might consider coming out to try their hand at Club racing, this first seminar Racing 101 will be a broad overview to introduce people to racing (along the lines of “getting you to the start line”) and will hopefully encourage folks to give it a try in some of our short Club races. The follow up session will be Racing 102 with Paul Faget on April 25. Hopefully both of these seminars will let you in on a big secret, which is that, if you want to be a better sailor, try racing!
Come on out and see what it’s all about! There is still lots of space left in the racing seminars. To register, please contact courses@saltspringsailing.ca.
About the Speakers:
Larisa Fry: Larisa would tell you she is not a competitive person. Do not let her sly smile misguide you. Having been highly active in a variety of sports over her lifetime, when she finally wore out all the body parts, she found sailing as her go to.
Specific to sailing, Larisa has race experience on Sharks, J- 24 and 35, and her own C & C 35 MK II. She competed in world events in both J and Shark class boats and was Ontario South Shore Champion. She has been race chair, and PHRF* measurer for Dalhousie Yacht Club (forgive her, she did not choose to be from Ontario). When asked what is so great about boats? Her simple reply is “boats cannot tell age or sex- they level the playing field.”
Larisa will offer a knowledge foundation to take easy steps into the sport of racing. She enjoys assisting and fostering a budding love for sailing for people of all ages, and abilities. Her goal in offering this course is to provide an invitation for new racers to gain some knowledge, and confidence to “just get your boat out there”.
*PHRF – Performance Handicap Racing Fleet is a handicapping system used for yacht racing in North America.
Bob Jones: Bob has been in and around sailboats most of his life. His Dad taught him the sailing basics in a 12′ gaff-rigged dinghy off an open beach in the South of England in the early 1950’s. He spent 12 years as a cadet and navigator on British merchant ships, and then came to Canada in 1973. In the late 1970’s he built a 45/- Wharram catamaran then moved to Salt Spring in 1991, subsequently joining the Club in 1995. Club membership gave him the opportunity to race a C&C 35, which was a new experience. By his own admission, he didn’t recognize how little I knew until he started racing!
Since retirement in 2005 he has raced consistently, winning the Total Points Trophy once and being Second on 3 occasions. His favorite race has always been the RNSA single handed race from Vancouver to Nanaimo and return over two days, having done about 18 of them. Since being elevated to the Ancient Mariner division (75 and over) he has won this division 5 times.
