Happy New Year! 2009 was a good year for the Marblehead Sonar fleet over all with lots of opportunities to participate in fleet racing, team racing, casual racing, seminars and cruising around Salem Sound and Massachusetts Bay. If you wanted to, you could have raced three times a week every week this past summer between Wednesday Night Racing, Harbor Challenge Team Racing and Saturday MRA.

On the National Racing front, the fleet had a number of notable results including:

• Atlantic Coast Champs -- Bill Lynn and team, Second
• Marblehead NOOD -- Sam Altreuter and team, Overall Champion
• New Englands - Dave Franzel and team, First
• Kirby Cup Team Race - Second
• Worlds -- Dave Franzel and team, First and Jud Smith and team, Second

We tried a couple of new things locally including using the Kattack system to get better insight into our performance and see what really happened on the race course. Additionally, I noticed a lot of families racing in some of these events which is the key to growing the next generation of sailors.

The 2010 schedule is shaping up with plenty of local sailing opportunities and National Regattas. The highlight of our season here in Marblehead will be the 2010 North American Championships in September hosted by the EYC and the Sonar Fleet.

If you are new to the fleet or interested in learning more about Sonar sailing in Marblehead, take a tour through the website and give me or anyone else you know who is involved a call.

Larry Ehrhardt,
Marblehead Sonar Fleet Captain