Oakcliff's first regatta of the year is this weekend.  American Spring Series is just around the corner and we need everyone who wants to race to sign up now.  Also between an Advanced Race Management  Seminar this weekend and a Mark Boat Operator course next week, we are firing with all barrels. 

Further afield we have great news from SapGrads and Acorn Alumni.  Read on for all of the updates.  

Oakcliff will be taking delivery of two  new-to-us Match 40s  bringing the overall fleet to 12.  These boats are the workhorses here and we are excited to have more to put into the rotation.  

This weekend's ABC Qualifiers will only use 8 boats which is still impressive considering how cold this winter was.  We were a bit worried about getting teams to sign up even though the rewards are pretty high. The winner (male or female) gets an invite to the US Sailing Match Race Championships and the top female skipper gets an invite to the Women's Match Race Championships. 

Dave Perry will be running a clinic on Friday to get everyone warmed up - literally.  He will be putting the teams plus some supporters who have signed up through the paces.  There are still spots available in the clinic. 

Jeff MacFarlane,thanks to board member and USMMA-SF Executive Director Ralf Steitz has a Class 40 for the summer.  He will be racing the Atlantic Cup and Bermuda Race as well as the 'normal' offshore races.  He will be racing most of these double handed with SapGrads making up the other half of the team.  The boat is at OBMC for anyone who wants to pop down and take a look.    

Brendan Larabee is headed to my home state of Michigan to a town on the west coast called Macatawa to run their expanding sailing programs.  Once there he will be using and copying as much as he can from the Oakcliff Model including weeknight drills and organized debriefs in the bar after.  He is just hoping the fresh water unfreezes before he gets there.   

Val Hommel, Acorn 2012 was just awarded a 4 year scholarship to the Citadel. This is the 1st time a female in the Norteast has received the ROTC Marine Corp Scholarship.  She will not only be toughing it out at the Citadel for 4 years she will then enter the Marine Corps as an officer and stay for a minimum of 5 years.  She is already doing amazing things and we suspect that she will take on the Marines and change the Corps.  

Last week I was lucky enough to be sailing on the gorgeous Perini Navi Silencio for the St. Barth's Bucket Regatta.  We had some challenges, as you do sailing a 380,000lb yacht in 25 knots of wind and lumpy Caribbean seas but managed finishes of 7, 2, 1 to climb to 3rd place overall. 

It is hard to say what the best part of the regatta is, the scenery, the trade winds, the baguettes, Jimmy Bufffet or the hundreds of other sailors you run into on the streets, at La Select or simply running along the road.     

That is it - it is the people.  The owners of this yacht and the permanent crew make it a pure pleasure to join as race crew.  Also this year I was able to have SapGrad Andrew "OD" O'Donnell join the team as well as Volvo veteran Ryan Godfrey adding leadership to the front of the boat.   There were great industry experts like Jim Lotz and Pierre Gerber.    

Then we had America's Cup bow turned navigator Suzy Leech assisting on the bridge, Australian Match Racer Nicky Souter, who will soon be running Riverside Yacht Club's Sailing Program and Oakcliff intern Sonja Drabin trimming and keeping the guys on the aft deck in control.  It was great to have a significant number of women racing this huge and powerful yacht. Yep it is the people!  

Check out more beautiful photos on this Facebook pages. 

American Spring: How Many Boats Do We Need?   

With the snow JUST going away we are a bit behind in our decision making for which big boat to splash next.    

We have the Farr 47, Ker 50, Farr 40s, Ker 11.3 and 11.5 to launch and we will manage to get as many as we need launched but in order to do that we NEED YOU TO SIGN UP.  So please click here and help me to put the teams together.  

Feedback: Please feel free to play around and let us know if you find any glitches.  As always it was a team effort and a huge thank you to all who helped. 

 Something New & Arty

We are lending 2 South for a new event "A Brush With Cocktails'  Those of you interested in trying your hand at creating art should sign up.  The best part is that you can BYOB or enjoy wine tasting which just might help with your creativity. 

For more info and to sign up go Here    

Oakcliff In Charleston 

Last week Hobie Ponting and Chris Kennedy popped down to Tampa at the last minute to help a brand new J-70 owner get his boat put together and to compete.  They ended up mid fleet which wasn't bad considering the boat arrived Tuesday and they got the call on Wednesday!

There is a little more lead time for the two Oakcliff teams headed to Charleston Race Week to sail two of our Melges 24s.  Make sure you find them and say hello.  They will be the ones wearing the new "Too Good...to be true" shirts. 

New Donor Board 

If you haven't been to Oakcliff lately you wouldn't have seen the brand new and very substantial donor board.  

Every calendar year it will start off empty and then as our generous supporters begin to donate their names are put up in recognition. 

Oakcliff Sailing is a high-performance training center for sailors who have progressed beyond traditional coaching methods.

We are a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization and located in Oyster Bay, NY.  

Visit OakCliffSailing.org