I am not sure I will ever really be a racer. I joined the club as an "associate" which usually means a regular without a boat, but is also the designation for someone with a boat that isn't in the points race (most of those races aren't at the nearby lake anyway). They have the "Coaching Series" in the Summer/Fall and the "Frostbite Series" in the winter, weather permitting. These are practice races the first Sunday of every month. What that means to me is that I can circle that day on the calendar way in advance and know that if I head over to the local lake, I will find some people to sail with, possibly including a crew. Now that I can point, I will try to run the buoys to work on technique, but Dan is right - the crew for the more serious racers never got the helm and didn't mess around with the boat figuring out how different things affected it (note to self - the halyard works best just up and over without the "once around the stick" on the way down
). I will probably only be in the club for a year. There are a couple of informal local groups that are more day/weekend cruise oriented (both of which are at Cape Lookout today, for example) that I am just not quite ready for yet and I am using the racing club as a stepping stone.