Aug. 28, 2002 was the ODOM Points Nite held at Surprise Lake, Milton, WA.

The weather was beautiful with breezes, at the start, at about 4-5mph, but

as the evening wore on the winds dropped becoming squirrelly and erratic

giving rise to the frustrating 85' deep holes. These, of course, always

seem to be present at the crucial times like starting, finishing and about

to round a mark.

There was a good turn out with 11 skippers. We had 6 ODOMS, 1 Soling 1m,

and three Victoria's. Skippers from far and near were present. Kelly

Martin(Gig Harbor, 25 miles one-way), Harry Lange(Enumclaw 40 miles), Joe

Brohan, local, Howard Rasmussen(University Place 15 miles), Art Smith(

Tacoma, 10 miles), Gary Kohler(Bellevue 25 miles), Bud Pell(Poulsbo 50

miles--again that's one-way). Bud did not have an ODOM so he sailed his

Soling for points since his boat was a 1 meter.

Other skippers present were Ken Pawlicki, Brown's Point(Tacoma), Craig

Mackey, Seattle, Bob Corbett, local and Jerry Murridge, one of the

visiting snowbirds that show up from the Phoenix, AZ area about the

start of the June session of regattas. What's the matter, Jerry? Can't you

stand the heat down there spiced and liberally sprinkled with those dust

storms? Guess you know that the better of the two is up here, buddy.

Recently, we've been most blessed by relatively little resident "goose

poop" on the dock. That meant one less thing to do prior to the starting

gun, which was at about 6:15PM. The marks had to be set for the course and

with Craig Mackey's able assist a v-e-r-y

l-o-n-g course was set up. Gosh, Craig! You put me at a decided

disadvantage. I didn't bring my binoculars with me. It was all I could do

is see that little mark dot out there on the horizon. Well, at least it

seemed that way. Since Ken Pawlicki sails only the club 12m, he gave us an

able assist with the scoring. Nice job, Ken.

Basically, sailing went well for the evening except for those deep holes I

previously alluded to along with the squirrelly winds. Well, Surprise Lake's

name is not a misnomer by any means. It's a challenge to sail. Apart from

this, one great challenge befell Gary H. He was having all kinds of

trouble. He was the only skipper that managed to sail the course doing

unintentional 360º all the way around. It was never really determined

whether the problem was frequency conflicts, radio problems, loose antenna

connection, receiver or skipper twitching tiller thumb problems! Hope you

get this resolved before the next sailing, Gary. It can be VERY

frustrating. Been there, done that.

We managed to get in 8 heats for the evening. All in all, considering all

of the little problems encountered a good time was had by all. We closed

out the evening at the lake with Ken P. rounding up the marks. The recovery

boat was "put to bed", the gear and oars were locked up in our gear box and

we then retired to The Milton Tav. A perfect end to a beautiful day.

Papa Joey Brohan

Placing for the night:

1-K Martin------7 pts.

2-H Lange-----16

3-J Brohan-----21

4-H Rasmussen 27

5-A Smith-------33

6-G Kohler------34

7-B Pell----------48