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Human Interest
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| Bill Brosius on Starseeker, Photo by Sean Trew |
The racing season for the venerable 17 boats of the Star class in Olympia on southern Puget Sound in Washington State, USA begins in early May. Docked at the private West Bay Marina, the fleet of 1974-1985 Stars (with epoxied bottoms) stay on buoys from launch until haul out in the fall.
Bill Brosius of Olympia, Washington is the sparkplug behind these boats based at the South Sound Sailing Society. A few years ago, Brosius started encouraging others to buy old Star boats, so he would have someone to race against. Interest was high in starting a one design class as all racing in the area was handicap, mainly PHRF. Brosius worked at finding reasonable priced old Stars and mating them with potential one design sailors. He went looking for used boats, lining up local buyers to build a fleet. The most expensive boat in the fleet to date was $3000 with trailer with most costing $1500-$2500.
The design of Stars has changed some over the years and newer boats are faster so local racers concentrate on getting older boats with hull numbers under 7,000 to keep the fleet competitive (the latest number for Stars is above 8200) The oldest are 5 woodies and the lowest hull number is 3337. Brosius used to have #927 from 1927 but sold it after refurbishing it. He’s now on the track of #23 that was owned by Seattle’s Sunny Vynne. Most of the rest of the fleet are glass boats built from 1974 to 1985, including three formerly owned by Olympic Gold Medalist Bill Buchan.
Sails (usually costing fleet members about $300 for a main and jib) are castoffs from newer Star boats and Bosius tries to keep the various mains and jibs in roughly comparable condition. Brosius also keeps a stock of masts available.
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| Start of Racing in Olympia, photo by Sean Trew |
Average age of the sailors is between 40 and 70. Many race larger PHRF boats on the weekends and concentrate on the Star in the short Thursday night racing, typically lasting a half hour to 45 minutes. Novice sailors take lessons on the Stars - last year 80% of the races Brosius’ boat participated in had other people sailing it. Brosius had been the stalwart race committee for the past several years but it looking at alternating the duty among members of the fleet so he can compete.
"It wouldn't be together if it weren't for him," said Mary Campbell, who bought a wooden Star about 50 years old for $1000. As with most old boats it was in reasonable shape but still needed work before it was race ready. She got help from Brosius.
In Brosius's own words:
I started out racing my Star boat in our club's PHRF races against the bigger boats and after beating quite a few, invited people from the club to come out and try the Star for fun. Then we had a chance to pick up three more that had been donated to a youth sailing program, real cheap.
I encouraged other people to use my boat to race in our dinghy races while I crewed on the other three boats, teaching those owners how to make their boats go. If someone couldn't make a race, we called around and found one of the people who had used mine, to come out and race the boat. Ever since, it has been like an infection, it just keeps spreading.
We have been racing as a fleet now for five years. Each year, we add two or three boats to the program and encourage more people to join the program by crewing first and then I find a boat for them if they want to buy one. I have been very strict about what hull numbers we have in the fleet and make sure all the boats are rigged the same and have fairly equal sails.
We also keep our races short and sweet, so if someone screws up a race, they have a chance to prove themselves in the next one. Another point is we have been able to get cheap moorage, in the water, for $20/mo. This requires we epoxy coat the bottoms and bottom paint the boats, but since they are all done that way, they are equal. We are able to heel the boats over before each race and wash the bottoms so they stay nice and clean and so far very few blisters have shown up. I have dictated the type of bottom paint to be used and how to finish it so it is very smooth.
No one wants to travel to other races, so we are equal in our own fleet. Last race we had, there were three different 1st place finishers, with the winner for the night the most consistant - that is what we want to instill in everyone.
Usually the time between the first boat to finish and the last is 2-3 minutes. I usually have two windward/leeward courses and one triangle course, very seldom a two lap race as most of the time it just turns out to be a parade and most of the skippers would rather have an extra race then a two lapper.
Because of the big swings in tides in this area [12-13 ft] we have currents and back eddies to contend with so tactics as well as sailing skills come in to play.
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| A wooden Star restored by Brosius at his workshop, photo by Rick Peters |
I have developed a crew list of 14 people who want to crew on a star this summer, I have given each skipper a copy of the list as well as those I have trained in how to sail a star, that way the skipper who can't make a race can call someone to race his boat that night. Another plus for us is five minutes out of the marina is our race area, it is where a lot of people on shore can watch us which has brought in a lot of inquires about the fleet.
I have the local paper do an article on the fleet each year and announce our annual kickoff meeting which is open to the public. That is how I got three boat owners interested this spring. I also spend a lot of time helping the other skippers maintain their boats and calling everyone three days before each race, reminding them of the race, help set up crew, or even volunteering to go out on their boat if that skipper is having problems and let someone else sail my boat.
Rick Peters of Los Angeles and I run parallel type programs and we are both fairly successful. He e-mails all his district people and me about every race he has and helps people get out on the boats. We are the spark plugs behind our programs and I am working on getting more people to be spark plugs in our program. Also John Finch of the Lake Ontario Canadian fleet has used the idea of picking up inexpensive under-7000 boats to build up the fleet.
The big thing I have found, is there are a lot of people who love the one design racing. I schedule our races on an off night for the big boats and keep in constant contact with all the skippers. I am not a real good sailor, but I have a lot of fun and win my share of races, I encourage everyone to use courtesy on the course, don't be so aggressive that they intimidate the newer people off the course and we gather after the races to talk about tactics, boat trim, etc.
I expect to add a couple of more boats to the fleet by fall and I hope this winter to scare a few more wood boats out of storage and see them fixed up and raced next year. Cary and I have shown with ours that they can be restored and upgraded and raced right along with the glass boats.
Fleet website: http://www.ssssclub.com/starflet.htm
Bill Brosius's email
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