August 8, 2008 Squalls brought blustery winds and rain to liven up the FN race. Two boats broached, some old sails were shredded and everyone got an exciting ride. Out of a dozen boats that started, only John Steele's "Bongwater", Jerry Wheeler's Sr 21 and Cliff Whatmore's "Gaux Get Mama" finished. Failure to find the marks produced more DNFs than breakdowns.

August 1, 2008     NEWS FLASH !    Sarasota YSP sailors Will Stocke, Max Famiglietti and Matt Dowd won the Sears Cup for the US Junior Triplehanded Championship in Chicago IL. This is the third time a Sarasota team has won this national event. In 2004, the team of Fred Strammer, Dalton Tebo, and Charlotte Sims won at Mallett's Bay VT. In 2006, Strammer, Katrina Salk, and Zeke Horowitz won at Detroit, MI.

August 1, 2008 The opposite direction mark rounding format was abandonned and a marathon substituted for the FN race. It was a nice, cool evening sail but the breeze faltered before everyone finished. "Bongwater", "Narley Melges", and "In Tune" managed to get across the finish line in that order before it went glassy.

July 25, 2008 Friday Night races were spiced up by sending the multihulls and the spinnaker boats around the windward mark in opposite directions. That was very exciting. Doug Dearden's "In Tune" won spinnaker and Mike Speth's "Swim Mart" won multihull.

July 20, 2008 Your webmaster returned from a vegetable oil powered tour of the Northeast, exploring traditional and modern boat designs. Former SSS sailor Jim Ryan was found on the east shore of the Chesapeake Bay sailing Log Canoes. On the south shore of Long Island, the 100th anniversary of the SS sailboat was celebrated. We arrived at the Sunfish North Americans on the shore of Lake Erie because it looked like a good place to camp for free. Event chair Tim Polaski put me on the spot by providing a race rigged Sunfish and sending me out to the course to be humbled.

June 20, 2008 The Friday Night "Jack Attack" was a resounding success. A light breeze held throughout the race. The reverse handicap format produced some close finishes in front of the crowd at Marina Jacks. Right after "Bongwater", Cliff Whatmore's "Gaux Get Mama' finished neck and neck, but ahead of, Doug Dearden's "In Tune". Then Jerry Wheeler and Bill Johnsen finished overlapped on their SRs after Bill found little wind near the Golden Gate Point condos. (see third paragraph in second column of the   Billy Johnson story). Randy St. James and crew were most relaxed while Bob Neff and crew on the Corsair needed a little more breeze.

June 16, 2008 The June Burgee reported that on April 8, 2008, the Board allocated $4,00.00 to hire GT3 Creative of Miami to design, implement, and manage a new official SSS website. This site will maintain up to date pages it has here but it is unclear whether pages designated as "links" to and from the official SSS website pages will continue to work.

June 13, 2008 The three Melges got out in front after an exciting start. The last leg was a run for the Melges and a beat for the rest of the fleet. Bongwater, Narley Melges and Gaux Get Mama finished in that order.

June 11, 2008 SBYA is conducting a survey in which you can paticipate at This Link.

June 5, 2008 The "Bongwater" crew won their first FN race of the season. Scattered thunderstorms produced gusty variable breezes. The RC boat, with Captain Kirk at the helm won the prize for most crew aboard.

May 30, 2008 Memorial Day had the most erratic winds of any race in Friday Night history. The "Purple Haze" crew recovered from having to return to restart to win this nail biter.