Well, 2019 was quite a year for Story Maker. It was the first full year of racing in Northern California for Story Maker. Our goal was to successfully race her in SF Bay on some of the key buoy races while also begin to develop her ocean prowess. We were fairly successful by all accounts. However, like anything in life you learn as you go.
Within the Bay we worked on crew development. The key to crew development is to always have a steady crew. For the most part, we kept our core crew intact which was great. Our foredeck crew developed steadily with a couple of rockstars Juniors from St. Francis (Ben O. and Sean M.--my son). Being teenagers, they were literally growing in front of us!
Our main trimmer Dave was a steady force and found the fine-tune that we needed in heavy and light air. (Can we say 40kts. in the Dec EYC Jack Frost Midwinters!) Our trimming and pit crew developed through the season working together as a successful unit with Casey, John N., Cris, John D., Wayne, et. al.
Last season included two key ocean race wins and many podium finishes on the Bay.
As we look to 2020 and beyond we will be introducing more ocean and more distance to our race schedule. However, at the same time, 2020 will bring many exciting events such as my daughter's High School graduation and a trip to the Netherlands for the Nacra 15 Open World Championship. Only a few things to fit into our schedule!
I also wanted to introduce you to our latest stories that have joined the Story Maker Racing family. Here there are:
Story Maker - You already know her, so enough said... :)
"TBD" Story - Yet to be officially named, the Nacra 15 entered the SMR fleet late in 2019 and is one of the premier high-performance sailboats in the world for aspiring youth sailors eyeing its big brother, the foiling Nacra 17 Olympic class boat. With speeds typically in the 20kts+ range, you may miss it if you aren't paying attention!
Short Story - It's simple, when you have a Nacra 15 going 20kts.+ then there always needs to be a support boat on the water. It also needs to go pretty fast! (hence the 150hp on the back). End of story. See, it is a "Short Story".
Long Story - Well, by the name you can imagine that we'd need to sit down and have plenty of time to explain this one. Likely, also a few glasses of wine! Long Story spends most of her time cruising the San Joaquin Delta in the summer months bring fun and enjoyment to all that come along for the ride.
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