Laser Class Announces THE SNOWBIRD SERIES

North American RC Laser Class Secretary, Dave Branning, has announced that the plans for a three regatta series, called The Snowbird Series, will be held in late February and early March of 2014. The three regattas will all be in Southern Florida in three different pond locations. This gives the snowbird folks who reside in Florida during the winter months, as well as the vacationers who descend on Florida for the annual Marco Island Midwinter Championship regatta, the benefit of participating in three events within an eight day period. Makes for a great vacation and gives you a few days in there to hit the beach.

The first event is the South East Florida Winter Regatta, Sunday, February 23, 2014 in Coconut Creek, FL (just north of Fort Lauderdale), at the Sabal Pines Park. This regatta will be hosted by the Sabal Pines RC Laser Fleet and the Sabal Pines Model Yacht Club. Barr Batzer will be Regatta Chairman. Since this the first year for this event, the regatta will be a one day event. It is possible to make it two days in subsequent years. The reason for this regatta is there is a host of skippers with RC Lasers on the east coast of Florida, especially in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Vero Beach areas that sail alone in their individual fleets. Now we have an event to give them some regatta experience and hopefully they will branch out and attend other events in their region and beyond. We expect some of the Carolina folks to make this one as well.

The second regatta will be the Snowbird Tuneup Regatta held in Punta Gorda, FL, Thursday February 27, 2014. AMYA Class Secretary, Nick Mortgu will be the regatta chairman again in 2014. The Punta Gorda  pond is just an hour north of Marco Island and last year was the first year for this event. This AMYA club has a large base of RC sailors and many any sailors from other classes borrowed a RC Laser and joined the competition. Alan Perkins, a talented RC Skipper with National Championships to his name, finished second in 2013. It is hoped that more skippers from other classes will join the event again in 2014.

The final leg of the new Snowbird Series will be the 11th annual Marco Island Midwinter Championship to be held Friday,February 28 through Sunday, March 2, 2014. This annual event has been home for many championships and generally draws over 30 boats.

Notice of Race(s) will be developed in due course along with On Line Registration via PayPal. In addition, all three will be on the AMYA site in due course here: http://www.theamya.org/regatta/.  Stay tuned, mark your calendars, and we hope to see you with sunscreen in hand in Florida in February.