At 4:00pm on Thursday the 6th, I was standing in my garage looking at all my stuff and wondering if it was going to be worth packing it all up and going. The weather forecast said tons of rain was coming towards the coast and could reach as far as Las Vegas by the weekend. I reminded myself that the weather guys are usually wrong, and Vegas is in the desert where it rarely rains. So I packed everything in the truck (including a bunch of stuff for the swap meet) went to the store and bought some food and drink and I was ready to leave in the morning. I called my friend Mario at 8:30pm and said "Are you ready to go?" his reply was, "Go where?" "To the desert, where else?" was my reply. The next morning at 5:00 there was a knock on my door and we were off. Now the only question was, will anybody else show up?

When we arrived at 2:00 on Friday we were surprised to see a group of people with their Sirocco mini yachts from the mid-west and Wally from Colorado with his Ice Flyer. As the day went on a few more people showed up. We set up my new yacht US 8 and the wind promptly came up to a nice 5-10 knots. We sailed for 2 hours or so, then the sun set and it was time for some liquid refreshments.

Saturday dawned with some sun and high clouds and not much wind. There seemed to be a constant parade of people coming in most of the morning. After breakfast I started to organize some informal racing and by the time11:00 rolled around there was probably 30 or so boats that were there ready to race. Racing was divided into 3 classes, Mini, Medium and Big (SASSASS rules). There were quite a few mini yachts there, including Blokarts, Manta singles, Sirocco's and of course Terry F. and his homebuilt mini. The Medium class consisted of Manta twins, Fed 5's (only one), and home built yachts of similar size (which there seems to be a lot of). The big boats were Charlie O'Leary's "Speed squared", US 1111, Howard Haupt and his modified Knight, Paul Ackerman and his trusty Friendship, Terry Fulbright with his class 5 yacht, the "Silver Turd" and US 8 (all new, but still using sails from US 2000). This event also doubled as a swap meet, so the veterans of the sport could hand down some older equipment to the newer arrivals. Racing got under way when the wind came up around 2:00 and we had a race in every class.

Sunday started the same way as Saturday. While waiting for the wind everybody was walking around checking out all of the homebuilt yachts and seeing what people had for sale. I sold everything that I brought. I should have brought more stuff, oh well, there's always next year. The wind finally came up and we had more racing. The weather started to look a little ugly, like it might rain (I even felt a few drops) and the wind was up and down. People were still sailing, catching the puffs as they came through. As the sun started to set and the clouds started to build, people started to break down camp and do some preliminary packing, just in case it started to rain in the middle of the night (like last year). A few people had to leave because they had to work on Monday. It never did rainŠ

Monday started out a little warmer than the other mornings but with more clouds. We were planning on staying until the afternoon, but with the wind forecast being not so good, we decided to pack up and drive home. There were some people who stayed until Tuesday including Curtis Obi and most of the people from the mid-west.

All in all I think it was a very well attended event with people showing up from, Ohio, Wisconsin, Utah, Colorado, California and Nevada as well as many spectators. The combination of racing and a swap meet seemed to work. Over the years of going to the speed trials, I've noticed quite a few people who were new to the sport, that were there to learn (about how to build and how to race) and those people seemed to have found this new event. The informal racing gave people a chance to learn without disrupting the normal flow of a bigger regatta.

I have also noticed in the last 5 years or so that the boats being built are far better in lighter winds than ever before. I think this is great. If you think about the average wind speed on the desert over the year it's probably around 10 or 12 knots (and usually less when there is a race happening). Any boat can sail when it's windy, but if you make your boat sail in 5 knots of breeze you get a lot more sailing in, and you can always put on a smaller sail when it finally does get windy. The wind at this event was never really over 10 knots, and if we had stuck to the NALSA rules of wind speed to start a race, we would have never raced. There seems to be a mini resurgence of interest in the sport with the sales of Blokarts and Sirocco's, as well as all the new home built yachts, even two Soups have sold in the last month. So I say, buy and modify old boats, build new boats, try new ideas, make them light and bring them to the races/events. Things are looking up for dirtboating as a sport.

I encourage everyone to attend this event next year, and bring all your old stuff to sell. Remember one man's junk in another man's treasure.

SEE YOU IN THE DIRT
Dennis Bassano US 8