Mike-

I'm only a former member of our sailing club, but the aggrieved party is a friend of mine who has been a long-time member.

You probably won't see any sailors from our club anytime soon - I don't believe there any serious sailors in this club anymore. It seems to be more of a social drinking organization with occasional impromptu sailing races when the wind is either almost non-existent or pretty moderate. They usually don't race when it is really blowing hard or very gusty off-shore. Although they still have some very good sailors in the group, most members are older now, have other priorities in their lives, and don't take sailing or racing too seriously anymore. Their fleet consists only of H16s, and during races there are usually no more that 7 or 8 boats max. They seem to have a really hard time recruiting young members.

This club used to be very serious in its heyday during the 1970s, and they even organized big regattas then - until the Park District put and end to that because there really wasn't any space to have that many people trailer in from other clubs.

It seems like the new young (very good) sailors we have at our beach are not interested to join any club, and they are getting into more interesting boats such as the F18s, Nacra 6.0s, I17s, Tornados, etc. Or they are getting into kitesailing. A couple of years ago we had 2 guys practice on their F18HT (Bimare) in the hope to participate in the Worrell 1000, but the race was cancelled.

Since none of the 400+boats on our beach is trailered in, the boats are parked there all summer. For that reason we really don't have that many expensive racing-type cats.

I wonder whether they have much better winds in Indiana or Michigan during the summer?? Unfortunately, we are often plagued by extremely gusty off-shore SW winds (e.g., say, 10knots w/gusts to 40knots - no fun!) in the summer (or none at all.

So, our beach is mainly a family beach with recreational sailors.

So, we do have a big sailing beach, but no real serious racers other than a small, close-knit "drinking" group, LOL!