9th Annual Traditional Small Craft Festival

Sarasota Sailing Squadron are excellent hosts for the festival and the location is outstanding. The weather however had other plans and the forecast for 20+ knot winds and rain kept a lot of folks away. Dave Jennings, the organizer of this event says "I have come to the conclusion if the weather event is not "named" I will not change my plans." We agree except since we are a bit wimpier we add a low temperature clause. We love to just hang out at the SSS and soak up the atmosphere so the weather really did not dampen our spirits. Friday was a washout but Saturday turned out OK albeit a bit on the windy side. None of the small craft ventured out so we spent the day relaxing and talking boats. The winds let up Sunday and several of us had a great time just messing about.

Every once in a while the sun would come out and light up the colors. Did not get a chance to find out much about this good looking sharpie.

Kent and Barbara Blakely's classic Sea Pearl, #8 was one of only a couple boats to venture out on Saturday. A couple reefs in the lug rig and 6 people for ballast worked well. Oh, the other boat to go out was a Puddle Duck Racer, of course!



 

Check out the illusion of the sail logo looking transparent with the background condos showing through. The logo background is opaque off-white not transparent.

 

Very nicely restored sailing Whitehall.

 

22' Melonseed with all kinds of gadgets including a tiller pilot.

 

Mike Jones brought this new-to-him William Garden Eel. A very cool little cruiser.

 

Lots of us had a turn sitting in the cockpit making sailing noises.

 

We've seen this big Skipjack before.  She's an impressive sight. Took the owner 9 1/2 years to build.

 

A couple Abaco Dinghies, a Penobscot 17 and a Goat dagger board.

 

Sunday morning, winds were light but they built into the teens during the day. 

 

This is a crop of the previous photo.  Check out how little of the Goat is in the water with just me and a bottle of drinking water onboard.

 

Tom Busenlener's Phoenix III  "Rascal" heading out Sunday.

 

Doug Engh's Penobscot 17 "Ransom II"

 

Dabbler sails setting nicely.

 

Penobscot 17, Sea Pearl, Goat and Pheonix III just messing about.

 

Doug and I went back out on the Penobscot Sunday afternoon.  The winds were now in the low teens gusting to maybe 15-16.  We had full sail up and the boat stayed balanced and handled very nicely.

 

Ron Hoddinott took a bunch of great pictures of the boats on display. You can see them here on the WCTSS photo gallery page.

 

 

And Now for Something Completely Different

Not doing any sailing lately but we did make it to Sun-n-Fun. In case you are not an airplane nut, Sun-n-Fun is the second largest airshow after Oshkosh. It's a great time and only an hour away from our house. We were in a good spot and the light was right to get a few decent shots of the Blue Angels.

 Wing tip to adjacent airplane's canopy is 18 inches.....really. Look it up.

 

 

 

 

"Fat Albert" the Blue Angels support aircraft.

 

Not something you see every day, P-51, P-38 and F-22.

 

Shiny show-planes.

 

Hinge and latch mechanism on the Grumman Avenger's folding wing is a work of art. Ridiculously small and light considering what it has to do. Why do we not have push-button hydraulically operated folding masts on our boats? Oh yeah, sailboats are of no military value.

 

Matt Younkin puts on an impressive show in the Beech 18.

 

 Just Aircraft's Super STOL. One of my favorite planes at the show. This thing will take off and land in less than 100ft. A lot less in the hands of an experienced STOL pilot.

 

 

As dirty as it gets on final. Deployed leading edge slats clearly visible. That's an autogyro in the background.

 

We camped with friends at the show and watched the night aerobatics from the campsite while sipping refreshments.  Yes that is an airplane doing aerobatics while spewing fireworks.  Pretty awesome for airplane-nut pyromaniacs. You know who you are.