May 20-21 brought the Spring Sailing Roadshow to Muskegon, Michigan for the J-24 Great Lakes Spring Regatta.  I crewed for my good friend Tony Noviski. Joining me were Mike Sell and Adam Zangerle.  With Tony being the lightest at 180 lbs., the boat was accurately named "The Big Show".  I arrived on Friday afternoon, with Tony, Mike and Adam already with the boat in the water and on their 3rd beer.  After an impressive showing at the Easter Regatta, Tony was very charged up to build on that performance (5th/40).  Saturday turned out to be very light breeze early.  In fact, we were postponed for a while until the breeze filled in out of the west (ironically, I later learned that the wind in Chicago was out of the east all weekend).  We had a tough opening race and ground back from 4th to win.  The boat clearly had speed and we were psyched with our ability to sail our race. The second race was good until the last beat.  We were running 1-3, and lost a few on a late shift.  A little disappointed with a 5th, we made a few adjustments for the last race. Wire to Wire is how the 3rd race went.  We had a slim lead at the first mark, and then poured it on for an impressive victory.  With the 1, 5, 1 (7 pts.) we had 7 on the second place boat. Sunday was a carbon copy from Saturday with light west breeze.  It picked up throughout the day, but never go over 12-15.  We had a relatively good first race until the 2nd beat.  We got pinned by a competitor and sailing to the left (hard!).  It wasn't that bad, but we lost some boats.  On the last beat, the wheels came off and we had an 11th.

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We knew that the points were close and that there were more than one boat in the running.  So we anticipated a less-aggressive attack and set up to sail our own race. Getting off the line was a little challenging all weekend.  We wanted to start near the pin, and we did, only to fall into the boat in front.  We got a nice shift and we were able to cross a number of boats that started up the line.  We caught another favorable shift and we were running 2nd up the beat until the right came in hard.  We rounded very, very deep (like 20th!).  The first run was a fetch, so we didn't have much of a chance to make any moves.  The next beat we were able to pass 5-6 boats and we were ready for a big move.  We did a set-jibe at the top mark and carried in a great puff to position ourselved into 2nd place.  We had all the boats we needed and covered for the regatta victory. It was great to sail with Tony on his 24, even though I am a bit whiney and lazy when it comes to crewing on a J-24 (they aren't very comfortable).  Adam obviously knows the boats well and helped Tony with hull speed.  Mike did a wonderful job on the bow.  At 230 lbs, he moved like a cat....I was the one thumping on the boat.  Good crew work and good chemistry.  It was a great victory!