2004 Lightning Clinic - Fleet 50

Clinic by Greg Fisher

This past weekend I did a 2 day Lightning clinic sponsored by Fleet 50, at Leeslyvania State Park 30 miles south of Washington in Virginia. It was a beautiful state park location to host the event, as the atmosphere helped maintain a nice informality for the 18 boats who participated.

We held a 3 hour boat side chat Saturday morning about sail trim, tuning and boat handling followed by two hours of drills and video Saturday afternoon. My wife, JoAnn also helped with the instruction on crewing the bow and her observations on making the switch from crew to driver.

That evening we reviewed the video of the day. It appeared that where we'd set up the video/TV was going to provide a major dilemma...It seems that the park rules allowed only one area where we could hold the cocktail party ( and the keg) which was a fair bit away from where we had electricity for the TV and video camera. But when someone produced a 250' extension cord all was well!

Sunday after an attempt to do more sailing, the wind convinced us it was not going to co-operate.

We held more discussions ( with our 250' power cord!) and the de brief. All in all it was a great place for a clinic...a beautiful location that again encouraged the informal instruction that can make these clinics so enjoyable.

Fleet 50 will be hosting a regatta in two weeks that should also prove to be an enjoyable experience for anyone who attends.

Thanks to Jeff Stork, Kathy Bleakley and Laurie Duncan for all their efforts in making it happen.