Mike K. kept telling me you have to go to Spring Fever! Why, What is Spring Fever, Where is Spring Fever? The answers to these questions and the real insite to this race I feel has not been reveled.
In my humble opinion, Spring Fever 2007 was more than a catamarn race of 80 some boats, it is a bunch of folks young and old, little and big, newbies and veterans gathering together for three days of family fun. Yes, Spring Fever tries to encompass all aspect of the family. Including great food, camping, many fires and stories (lies <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />), parties, special easter bunny raffles for the kids, Great sponsors, special surprizes, and yes lots of great sailing.
Having sailed all over the south east this was my first introduction to Lake Hartwell. I never new what I was missing. For the small camping fee we had full use of the campgrounds including the showers, although if you did not pick your times right you could run out of hot water. The other item that stuck out in my mind was the way everyone was willing to help each other out. I discovered it was a great place to exchange ideas about cats and rigging. There was a phrase going around WWDLD (What Would David Leonard Do) that I soon understood. As his Layline boat had a continues crowd around it to see all the new tricks in rigging he brought this time. As I stated already David and many others where very open to share there thoughts, ideas, and to help each other on and off the water. To me this is one of the best reasons to go to spring Fever.
My only disappoint (if you can call it that ) is that there was not more open class boats there to race against. My hope is that this post will put more cat sailors at ease and maybe you will come next year with your non one-design cat. I raced my Naca 5.2 (25 years old boat) and felt very comfortable out on the course. The race committiee did a great job at seperating the fast, high tech boats from us slow boats. In fact we raced seperate courses, the slower boats sailing the inner course and the faster boats on the outside course. There was also four or five seperate starts grouping the cats according to their class and or speeds.
To sum it up my thanks go out to Nigel, Alex, Mr. Ernie, and everyone who helped put this event on. I will be there next year hope you will give it a try.
Mike K. thanks for the encourgement,
Carl
Saylor Specialties
www.saylorspecialties.comP.S. Nigel, Love my new Hat <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
