New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta

I will be heading up to Newport Rhode Island tomorrow to sail with Glenn Darden on his NY 42 in the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta.  

We won this event last year and then followed it up with a pretty awful regatta in the NY 42 Nationals a month later.  

Glenn has largely the same team together for this summer's season and I am looking forward to sailing again with "Team Hoss". 

As I did last year, I will be the tactician once again which I must confess is a big challenge for me.  I always feel like I have a better handle on tactics when I have my hand on a tiller or at least a mainsheet and have direct input from the boat on how it is moving.  One would think it would be easier to call tactics with the freedom to look around.  This is an area that I would really like to improve in and I look forward to the challenge.

NY42's are very even in speed and all of the boats tend to arrive at the first windward mark together.  The last 100 yards of the first beat can determine the race.  Having a good strategy on how to handle that last part of the beat is imperative.  

And.....as the saying goes....good boat speed tends to make a tactician look really smart.  I am hopeful that we are able to create that every so slight edge in speed to help us get around the first windward mark in the top pack.

Keep you posted!

Wedding Day!!

Amy Campbell and I were married this past weekend at the Circle H Lodge on beautiful Inks Lake here in the Texas Hill Country.  We had the perfect weekend with both of our families staying at the Lodge with us.  The weekend was full of paddle boarding, kayaking, volleyball, Laser sailing and windsurfing.  It was awesome to see all our kid, nieces and nephews spread across the lawn and lake enjoying the outdoors.

Amy had her lovely daughters, Aubrey, Lauren and Emma as her attendants and I had my beautiful daughter Hannah as my "best man" along with my sons Stuart and Alex as my groomsmen.


Merging two families with six kids together is not for the faint of heart,  especially when it involves one family re-locating to a different city and changing schools and leaving everything they have ever known behind.

Amy and her girls did that for us and never was there a complaint or misgiving.  Amy and her girls have embraced their new lives here in Austin and everyone who has come in contact with them has embraced them as well.

It is a miracle we found each other and amazing that we have six kids between us that love each other the way they do.  We are very, very lucky!

I am the luckiest of all because I have an incredible wife and three more wonderful girls to love!