Chris - just wait, it's getting warm enough to bring the water cannon back! Arrgh! Prepare for boarding! Actually, given the quality of my starts I'm just trying to make somebody else's start equally bad. Misery loves company...

Actually, on the match racing thing, I always thought it would be fun at the end of a season for the clubs in an area to send their season's "Champion" to a match racing event against the other clubs' "Champions". It would be a fun way to tie clubs and sailors together and might make for a hellava party. Some logistics obviously would be hard, but I'm sure all the creative minds could make something like this work if we didn't take it too overly serious. You could do it at the end of the year, or at the beginning of the next year. Depending on the number of participants and time, you might only need to rustle up two loaner boats (maybe one or two extra) if the various clubs don't sail the weapon of choice. It could even be fun having the meeting at the beginning of the season that lays out the ground rules (ie this year's run off will be on Hobie 14 turbos, Reynolds 33s, or whatever, boats get switched between rounds, any team that performs too well does a round of tequila shots before the next race, etc.).