by Pam

Days like this past Saturday make me so grateful to be a Butterflyer. Doug is constantly telling me that he loves sailing with the Butterflys and that the difference in the White Rock Lasers and Butterflys is night and day and the Fly competition is top notch.

I’ve sailed in many different fleets around the area and have noted that sailors of like temperament tend to flock together and the fleets themselves tend to take on a distinct personality and temperament. Go sit and watch a fleet start and round marks and you’ll instantly know the temperament of the fleet. Sadly, many ultra competitive fleets have excessive instances of bad sportsmanship in the form of intimidation, foul language, arguing over penalties, etc. and many of their minor infractions are no longer even recognizable as unsportsmanlike. It’s all very distasteful.

One of the most important things you can learn when sailing (and in life) is sportsmanship. When you encounter a good sport, you know it and when you don’t, you know that too. Interestingly, when you encounter someone who is still developing their sportsmanship personality and they flip flop from one to the other, you somehow know they aren’t a finished product yet and their reaction to incidents are often good predictors of which way they will ultimately develop. The choice of fleets they sail with can be good indicators as well.

The White Rock Butterfly fleet, however, is a bit of a paradox. The competition is such that a two time Laser world champion chooses to sail in this fleet and he isn’t always at the front and the same person doesn’t win race after race. And yet beginners feel completely welcome in this fleet. It is rare that you’ll ever hear any yelling or swearing on our course. And the Butterfly sportsmanship can really spoil you.

Doug was filming the races last Saturday and maintaining a running commentary. He was in first place with me and Bruce close behind. He looked back and saw me tack on top of Bruce. Bruce said ‘oh’ in a friendly way that also let me know he took note of the aggressive move on my part. I apologized saying I didn’t mean to do that. Doug’s commentary was, ‘Pam just tacked and made two mistakes. One she tacked right on top of Bruce which I’m sure was an accident and two she tacked into my dirty air’ then about 30 seconds later Doug tacked away to clear my air. Later in that same race Bruce was again behind me and we were on the last leg and I tacked on him again but before doing so said to him that this time it was intentional. Both Bruce and Doug sailed races that were competitive and respectful of others and both beat me across the line. I sailed my best and although I didn’t foul Bruce, I had an instance where I didn’t display the incredible Butterfly sportsmanship.

It speaks volumes about the Butterflys that the competition is so good and yet they try to sail cleanly and respectfully. Week after week and year after year, the Butterflys consistently offer up a silent invitation to a classier way of sailing that is both competitive and a display of a Butterfly sportsmanship that shows respect for everyone on the course and allows a sailor to enjoy the racing experience without the hassle of someone trying to sail ultra aggressively and ruin their race (at least not until the last leg).

After giving some thought to how the fleet has managed to cultivate this wonderful character I decided upon one primary reason. Our core group of Butterflyers have lived and sailed long enough that they’ve have learned to consistently remember … sailing is a gift … and they sail in a way that shows that they feel grateful for that gift and want to share it with others and the competition is secondary.

If we all remember this and apply it consistently, then hopefully we will inspire all who sail with us to sail with gratitude and maybe we will maintain our unique Butterfly sportsmanship for many years to come.

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by Pam

White Rock Lake … yeah, you heard me right!  It’s a well kept secret in the middle of Dallas that only a privileged few have learned about.  No, I’m not talking about the herds of walkers, runners, cyclists, etc. that circle the lake on a regular basis.  There is no magic youth infusion going on there.  I’m talking about the lake itself.  Swimming isn’t allowed and rumor has it, an open cut exposed to the waters of White Rock can quickly turn into a nasty infection that might land you in the hospital.  But there is a magic youth infusion that happens on the lake.  The local sailors all know about it but they’re not always big on sharing the secret.

It’s right in front of everyone but no one really sees it.  Stop some Saturday morning as the Butterfly fleet is getting ready to sail and you’ll see the handful of 50, 60 and 70+ year olds getting out of there cars to go sailing.  One conversation with them and you’ll realize that they are, by far, the coolest old folks you’ll ever meet.  Sailing has this special way of keeping the body and mind flexible.  An inflexible body and mind looks and acts really old.  The amazing flexibility that comes from sailing keeps the sailor from getting old, at least in the ugly sense of the word.  

Now try this for a twist.  As much as getting old can be a real downer, being young, in the annoying, know-it-all, ugly sense of the word can be an absolute nightmare.  Sailing has this special way of equalizing age.  It builds character like nothing you can imagine and will age a junior sailor mentally and emotionally in a very pleasant way.  Mother Nature doesn’t play favorites or give anyone a break on the water.  Everyone is equal and you learn to play the hand you’re dealt.  I’ve observed that junior sailors become so much more flexible in life as they get older.  They develop muscle memory and learn to minimize adversity and maximize opportunities.  They learn not to waste time complaining or gloating because things can, and often do, change in an instant.  The life lessons learned on the water will serve a junior sailor in every aspect of their life for the rest of their life.  If they’re lucky, they will still be sailing when they’re in their 80s and 90s and will be the coolest and most amazing old kids you’ll ever want to meet.

White Rock Lake is located in the middle of Dallas and yet few people really experience its transformative properties.  Regardless of your age, you’re doing yourself and your family a huge disservice if you live in Dallas and don’t take advantage of this fountain of youth. 

Let’s talk about sailing for a minute.  D/FW, and White Rock Lake, in particular, have produced some extremely talented sailors.  We have Olympic Medalists, World Champions, National Champions, and America’s Cup sailors, etc. sailing the various lakes in the D/FW area.  The sailing in the D/FW area is competitive and its sailors are known all over the world.  Sailing is physically, mentally and emotionally challenging.  And it’s rewarding!  There aren’t many sports that you can pit a 15 year old against a 75 year old and the odds may well be in favor of the 75 year old. 

Think about that.  How often do you get to compete on an equal level with your grandfather, son and sister.  Not only compete with them but have a normal conversation with them, not to mention sensational memories.  I’ll never forget the day I was coming back into the docks and was about 10 feet behind a 72 year old and we were both hit with a gust of wind and the boats were immediately knocked over.  I was watching the 72 year old and the instant the boat started to tip, you’d think someone just set his rear end on fire.  He was out of the cockpit and up on the side of the boat in about 3 seconds flat.  I quickly copied him and was able to get the boat back up.  I learned how to right a tipped sailboat from a 72 year old.  Amazing!  But then I clumsily sailed over the top of his sail and then stalled and held his boat down.  He just won’t let me forget that.

White Rock Lake has two private sailing clubs, White Rock Boat Club (www.whiterockboatclub.org) and Corinthian Sailing Club (www.cscsailing.org).  The Butterfly Fleet (www.fleet20.blogspot.com) sails every Saturday all year long and is a great boat for beginners (young and old) to learn to sail.  Two Butterfly fleet boats are available for guests to come use to help them decide if this sport is for them.  The cost of a used Butterfly can be from $200-$1,000 and a new one is about $4000.  You can certainly sink money into this sport but you can also do it on a really tight budget or for free if you just want to come crew on some of the bigger boats or just sail the fleet boats until you find a used boat in your budget.

Come dip your toe in the fountain of youth and see if you don’t feel a little younger afterwards.

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by Pam

 

This is my first attempt at video editing.  The wind ruined alot of commentary and I had to cut it.  For some reason the video quality on YouTube isn't as good as the actual video I have on my computer.  Maybe I'll figure out how to fix that later.

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by Pam

It’s THAT time of year again. Awards to give out, parties to plan, new officers to elect, next year’s sailing calendar to plan, accomplishments to review, next year’s goals to plan, volunteers to find, commitments to make, and, let’s not forget, holidays, spending, family and in-laws. Aah, I can feel the stress levels and tension starting to build. Yep, ‘tis the season!

A veritable powder keg of emotions. Different opinions, different goals, conflicting obligations, different methods of handling things, and, of course, feelings. Oh, as if the holidays weren’t stressful enough!

Sailors seem to find a state of peace, serenity and rejuvenation on the lake. Sometimes they just want to holler or beat the snot out of someone (without going to jail) and the lake lets them do that too. Cheap therapy. Yep! White Rock will be a hopping place this holiday season. How lucky are we to be able to escape the daily grind and spend time with such a dysfunctional group and actually enjoy it and call it home. Come give the Butterfly fleet a try this winter. We’re a couple of degrees mellower than the normal White Rock sailor.

The Fly Fleet had a great year. We began the year leaning heavily on our CSC members and the use of CSC’s rescue boats for our races and finished the year leaning heavily on WRBC with its new rescue boat, clubhouse and finger piers. Our Wrangle Regatta this year grew to almost 50 boats in 3 fleets (Fish, Flys, Lasers) with many off lake sailors joining us and CSC’s facilities accommodating the bulk of the competitors with the F/S fleet doing committee. Thank you CSC!!

The Butterfly sailors are becoming more active outside of their regular Saturday races. The Fly fleet had as many boats as the F/S fleet for the State Fair this year. The Fly fleet also stepped up and helped out with duty for both the Open House and the Terlingua and added a little bonus at the Open House by taking pictures and videos and posting them on our website.

Several Butterfly sailors have also been active in other fleets and sailed on the Sunfish, Laser, F/S, J/22, and J/24 circuits. Of course, we can’t forget that we’ve managed to coax the currently club-less, former world blah, blah, blah, Doug Peckover, into sailing a Butterfly and he went and won the Butterfly National Championship in Missouri. Some of us also followed his sailing adventures at the Worlds this year where he took a 6th place despite currently being legally blind. We’re anxious to see what he accomplishes after he gets his new eyes for Christmas.

Two of our members, Amber and Dave, upgraded with brand new Butterflys and we’ve had many guests sail our popular fleet boats throughout the year. We’ve run various sailing drills before racing which have been entertaining. The fleet also began tinkering with the concept of a Round Table Club which has taken off slowly and begun moving to different venues. Our website has been a new little twist this year with the addition of all sorts of pictures, videos and articles.

We will continue to sail throughout the winter on Saturdays and we’re just about the friendliest and most helpful fleet around. Come out and join us. We’d love to have you!

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by Pam

Butterfly Fleet News

This picture represents the internet traffic of the Butterfly Fleet’s blog-style website since March of 2009. Make that the world renown Butterfly Fleet.

As fleet captain, I took over maintenance for the blog earlier this year. I began adding content in December but had no idea whether anyone was even hitting the website. In March I located and added a statistics counter. It was interesting to watch how internet traffic spreads through word of mouth. It was also interesting to see how soon the site was “crawled” and the data scraped so that the text became searchable on the internet and traffic continued to grow. Quite a powerful tool.

Each person that takes over the blog will get to leave their mark. A mark that people all over the world are seeing. A mark that leaves an impression about the sailors and the sailing available on White Rock Lake. The Butterfly Fleet has a very long history at White Rock Lake and some very talented sailors once sailed a Butterfly. If you have any old pictures, stories or ideas that you would like to contribute, please send them for publication. We would love to share them.

The Butterfly Fleet wishes to express many thanks to Shaun Hoffman for setting up our original site. He has been a huge contributor to every club and fleet with which he has been associated.

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by Pam

Butterfly Fleet News

I see new boats everywhere. Look closely at the picture. It’s the answer to an often asked question. Yes, they do still make the Butterfly and White Rock Lake is now home to two brand new Butterflys. The one pictured above (hull 10794) belongs to Amber and is named Sunshine. Its hull color is mango and it has a custom mango colored Butterfly decal on the front deck. You’ll know Amber when you see her because she’ll be wearing the clothes with the embroidered mango Butterfly. Be sure to welcome her to White Rock Lake and congratulate her on her new boat. The other new boat is solid white and belongs to long time Butterflyer, Dave Koegl. Congratulations Amber and Dave!!

In addition to the new Butterflys on the lake, WRBC just bought a brand new rescue boat that the Butterfly fleet will now be using for its Saturday races. It is a 17 foot Boston Whaler Guardian with a 60 hp Mercury 4-stroke, big-foot motor. She was launched on July 25 and immediately put into service for the Saturday races. The fleet wishes to thank CSC for generously providing us with a rescue boat to use for several months now. We’re very excited to have WRBC’s new boat available for our use.

It’s summer time and potential new sailors and club members are now surfacing at White Rock Lake. Where appropriate, please steer these new sailors to the Butterfly fleet (http://www.butterflyfleet20.org/). We have two fleet boats available for use and we sail every Saturday with a first signal at 10:30 a.m. Lasers and Sunfish are welcome and have been joining us regularly each Saturday. We sail two races, break for a quick lunch and then sail another race.

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By Pam

Butterfly Fleet News

Wrangle Regatta

The Butterfly fleet held its annual Wrangle Regatta on June 6-7, 2009. We had a successful turnout with 46 boats registered consisting of 17 Butterflys, 16 Sunfish and 13 Lasers. The winds proved to be too much for some, a challenge to most and an absolute blast for a few. The Flying Scot fleet, with Tom Miller and Ted Perna as PROs, provided race committee and did an excellent job of getting in 6 races over two days with each fleet getting their own start and only a limited amount of mixing of the fleets during the racing.

This year the Sunfish gave White Rock Lake and the Wrangle a try as a stop in their racing circuit. We received compliments on the event and an indication that they would like to return again next year.

As a testament to the success of the event, several of the winners were new faces and not White Rock Lake usuals:

Butterfly winners were Stephen Nelson (a very talented 15 year old from Chandler’s Landing), Gary Eppink (WRBC) and Burton Shepherd (CSC).

Sunfish winners were Tony Collins (CSC), Ed Hill (Austin), and David McCary (Shreveport).

Laser winners were Mark Eldred (Houston), Doug Peckover (WRBC), and Mark Babb (CSC).

Butterfly Nationals

This year the Butterfly Nationals were held in Missouri at Lake Lotawana and the racers were challenged with one day of a little wind, a little drifting and a little rain followed by a full day of howling winds with 15 to 25 mph gusts. Three sailors from Texas made the trip, Stephen Nelson (Chandler’s Landing), Doug Peckover (WRBC) and Pam Newton (WRBC).

At the awards ceremony, Doug took first, Stephen took third and Pam took first among the women and Texas was looking quite impressive. However, a scoring error stripped Pam of the top female and bumped Stephen to 4th but it was pretty easy to calculate Doug’s 5 firsts with a throw out of 2. No doubt about it, Doug Peckover, who has sailed a Butterfly only a handful of times, is the 2009 Butterfly National Champion winning an impressive 5 races (a few by a minute or more).

Doug was competing against some extremely talented sailors that he was certain had better boat speed and boat handling. He had been experimenting with a different method of tactical race management and was able to figure out a couple of things in the first race that apparently gave him quite an advantage despite being out-sailed by his competition.

Round Table Club

The Butterfly Fleet has been dabbling with the beginnings of a group they’ve dubbed the Round Table Club open to anyone that wants to learn what they can and teach what they know. It’s slowly taking shape and is presently moving from venue to venue with discussions on various sailing topics in an effort to learn various tips, tricks and techniques from other clubs, lakes and fleets. Arlington Yacht Club is hosting the next round table on July 11, 2009 and Doug Peckover will be running sailing drills during the day and then kicking off the round table discussion. Topics and contributors are determined by the attendees and their questions. Perhaps Doug will kick off the discussions by sharing whatever it is that he was experimenting with at Lake Lotawana that won him the nationals.

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By Pam

IT’S WRANGLE TIME!!! The Butterflys* are hosting their 48th** annual regatta on June 6-7, 2009. This year, Sunfish will be joining us with the Wrangle being the 5th stop on their racing circuit. CSC has been kind enough to test their facilities’ limits and its ability to handle the 38** boat Sunfish fleet with launching and overnight storage of the fleet inside the gates of CSC. If you stub your toe on a Sunfish trailer, sailor or dolly on the docks during this weekend, please smile and give them a big CSC welcome and point them toward WRBC (finger optional).

Of course, the Butterflys* wouldn’t trust the race committee of this illustrious event to just anyone and the Flying Scots have generously offered to step in and put on the best racing we’ve had in 28** years.

So grab a Butterfly, Sunfish or Laser and come join in the fun. We may have extra boats available for the adventurous souls that want to participate. Details and contact information can be found at www.butterflyfleet20.org/.

* Okay folks, plural proper nouns that end in “y” are not “ies” … one Kennedy, two Kennedys, one Butterfly, two Butterflys. Got it?
** Just some random number that sounded good

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By Pam

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Yep. That’s us! The Butterfly fleet is an age old, good luck tradition at White Rock Lake that celebrates the past (old), the future (new), friends (borrowed), loyalty (blue), and, of course, if you sail a Butterfly, you’re definitely going to have that sixpence leftover to stick in your shoe.

Figure Eight Drills

So here’s what’s shaking in the fleet:

1. We still sail every Saturday all year round and Sunfish and Lasers are always welcome to join us.
   
   
2. We have a new website (www.butterflyfleet20.org) that’s kept up to date and in the upper right hand corner you will find sailing times, race duty assignments, scheduled training drills, and Round Table Club meeting announcements.
   
   
3. The old salts are still around and still winning but they’ve soften a touch since their hard core racing days and have welcomed many newcomers and are patiently teaching and training ... and did I mention, still winning.
   
   
4. We have fleet boats available for use (no fees or membership dues required) and even though they are often at back of the fleet, every so often someone will sail the old girls and win and remind us that the old boats haven’t lost their competitive spirit.
   
   
5. From time to time we’re running training drills on Saturdays ... 10 starts in 10 minutes, figure eight boat handling drills, and some handicap racing where the fleet inverts and the back of the fleet starts first and we make the usual front runners work a little harder.
   
   
6. Our Wrangle Regatta is coming up on June 6-7 and will also be a Sunfish Circuit Stop.
   
   
7. We have started a Round Table Club welcoming participation from all sailors with an interest in learning and teaching to discuss various sailing related topics and are planning to move it from club to club so that sailors from various fleets and clubs can meet and learn from each other.
   
   
8. We are contemplating doing some match racing on Wednesday nights so if you have any interest but not a boat, please let us know and we’ll try to accommodate you.

If you’re an adult and you’ve crewed but never learned helm, if you’re a parent that wants to get your junior involved in sailing, or if you’re a junior and you’ve outgrown (or missed) the Opti but aren’t ready for a Laser, come sail one of our fleet boats in a gentle, competitive and helpful environment. We're everything from a beginning, transitioning, training, maintenance, winter to retirement fleet.

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By Shaun

Butterfly Fleet 20 is a group of Dallas area sailors who promote and regularly race the Butterfly sailboat. It is based on White Rock Lake in the middle of the city of Dallas.

Most of the sailors in the fleet are members of either the White Rock Boat Club or of the Corinthian Sailing club.Races are held every Saturday, with first gun scheduled for 10:30AM. In the winter series (Dec., Jan., and Feb.), first gun will be at noon.

Occasional guests are welcome. Show up at the White Rock Boat Club an hour before races and see if a boat is available to borrow. Those who race regularly should become at least an associate member of either the WRBC or CSC. Recently, Lasers have been racing with us. Any single-handed board boat is welcome on the starting line. For the moment only Butterflies are 'officially' scored.

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By Shaun

New to sailing? Do you have questions about what does what? Need a translator for the sailing vernacular?

No worries! Fleet 20 is glad to have you on board. Join us on Saturdays and our members would love to meet you and be an aid in discovering sailing. Additionally, the two clubs on White Rock Lake, hold multiple learning events throughout the year.

Ask a fleet member for details and/or check the two club web sites for additional information.

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