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Showing posts from 2007

Columbus Day Regatta 2007 Results

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Coming into the Columbus Day Regatta weekend, the forecast was looking similar to Harvest Regatta . SAT...SW WIND... BECOMING S 20 TO 25 KT WITH GUSTS TO 30 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES... BUILDING TO 6 FT IN THE AFTERNOON. NW SWELL 8 FT AT 11 SECONDS. CHANCE OF RAIN. SUN...S WIND... RISING TO 25 TO 30 KT WITH GUSTS TO 35 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 5 FT. NW SWELL 8 FT. RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON Saturday was light and fluky which is not good when the current is a knot or two... Ten Santana 20's made the trip for this fun regatta. Choosing to avoid current but finding less wind... placed us in 4th for race one. The wind was a little more stable at the beginning of the second race but it totally shut down at the end. We were withing 200 feet of the finish and barely making progress as we short tacked the north shore to stay out of as much current as possible. We had a comfortable lead in terms of distance but nothing was comfortable with the conditions. We struggled to mai

YBYC Columbus Day 2007 Regatta Pictures

We're in the yellow Santana 20 but check out the series of photos showing a spectacular wipe out on One-Eye Jacq.

Closing Out Another Sailing Season

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The results are in for the 2007 Harvet Regatta - Santana 20 class along with a description of all six races from the perspective of my skipper. Hopefully, we can race Sea Bear again in the near future.... perhaps the Great Pumpkin ! Otherwise, the Columbus Day Regatta in Newport might be our last for the season. It's always fun to race on the coast. Yaquina Bay racing is a bit like sandlot baseball or street hockey... All the marks are permanent buoys or dolphins for navigation . The courses feel something like "go down to the end of the street, around the light pole, the across the street and around Mr. & Mrs. Simon's car, then past the fire hydrant and cut through the Biondi's garden... First one back to the maple tree wins!" In addition to everything that racing throws at you, there's the tide and current to worry about (we're lake sailers...), there are crab pots to slalom through and the thoroughly confused weekend crabbers out in their bo

Six glorious minutes... Indeed!

I found this video on Rule 69 . Magnus called the post "Six glorious minutes..." I couldn't agree more! It's got two great things in one video: sailing and manufacturing (particularly CNC machining ).

Mini Transat 2007

Mini's are cool and I enjoy following the 2007 Mini Transat Race which started Tuesday. Solo ocean racing seems extreme enough... but to set out in a 6.5 meter boat is way out there... No diesel engine/generator, no head, no galley, no sleeping bunk, no heater, no crew... Just you and a very small, high tech. ocean going race boat. I saw my first mini in person at the Corinthian Yacht Club while participating in this year's SOCKS regatta . The boat belongs to Craig Horsfield who is campaigning for the 2009 Mini Transat. There are only two Americans in this year's race (in a very French/Euro dominated class). I tracked the progress of Alex MeVay and Genasun crossing the Atlantic last year for the summer mini racing season and qualification for this year's Transat. Clay Burkhalter is the other American in this year's race. This video about the Mini Transat by Lucas Schroder, NED 633 is well done. "It's a really small boat with too much sail"...

Harvest Regatta -- Day 2 Controversy

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Sunday: Sunny, North Wind, Averaging about 15 mph, Max 18 mph, Max Gust 26 mph The forecast for wind was the same as Saturday . One difference being the earlier start time by two hours. The Lido fleet made an early decision not to race. Probably a wise choice even though the wind did not build to the same level. After Day 1: Sea Bear was in first with three bullets and... three points. H2O Boa was in second with three seconds and... six points. Disaster Area was in third with three thrids and... nine points. (The math is killing me!) With a couple exceptions, all the S20s left the dock with jibs. Similar to the Lidos, everyone expected 10 to 20 from the North. Early in our pre-race routine, we decided to go with the genoa as the wind speed actually decreased below 15. Racing was tight again at the top. In the first race, we managed to beat Sea Bear for our first bullet of the regatta. In the second race, we were looking for a pin end start along with Sea Bear and DA. Fortunately f

Wildfire Sideshow

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Toward the latter part of the regatta on Saturday a wildfire started near the east shore of the lake. It was a strange sight both during and after racing. Many roads were blocked off for several hours. Our dry September conditions and the high winds made for a very dangerous situation. The fire came within yards of several homes but thankfully no life was lost.

Harvest Regatta... What a hoot!

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We don't get wind like this on Fern Ridge very often. In fact, several people (myself included) have never seen wind like this before on our lake. For me, that covers ten years. Saturday Conditions: Sunny, North Wind, Averaging just above 20 mph, Max 28 mph, Max Gust 37 mph. No, that's not a description of the conditions at Cascade Locks or SOCKS . It's our humble little ACE Project . This was jib weather... and we were at home. The regatta started off with 5 fleets including Lidos, Portsmouth, Santana 20s, PHRF and multi hulls. As boats were doing their pre-race preparations, several capsized and concluded the conditions were beyond their comfort zone. Others would come to that conclusion as the day wore on and the wind continued to build. The first course was a Windward-Leeward, twice around. We were the third start after the Lidos and Portsmouth . One Lido tentatively crossed the start line. Five minutes later a Fireball, some Thistles and a couple Lightnings sta

When is dragging a sheet fast?

Dragging a sheet is fast, when someone else is doing it... Last Thursday, I noticed the In-N-Out Boys were dragging a line in the water. It wasn't until after the start that we passed in front of them and I pointed out the dangling equipment. As they tried to correct the situation, we all discovered they had actually sailed over the top of their starboard spin sheet. That would not have been a fun discovery rounding the windward mark... So, that's slow for them but it gets even better... for us. We were the first to tack to port on a nice left hand shift. The Boys have crossed behind us and hold their course on starboard as they get their spin sheet out from under the bow. Meanwhile, they're crossing in front of just about the entire fleet... either on starboard but wanting desperately to tack or on port with no rights. They were all held hostage for a while as we made our get away... gaining a lead no one could overcome. I still think it's helpful to point out

Lido Racing

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The Lido 14 is a great boat to race with your kids. I have really enjoyed sharing this wonderful sport with my son this summer. It seems every night out brings a new experience or new lesson. It might be a huge wind shift at the start or taking on a little water over the rail in a tack or sailing very close to other boats. I've seen it before but it's been fun to experience it again with Mr. T. Many firsts for him... Good times for us!

A picture may be worth a thousand words...

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After coming across this cool windsurfing picture on the horse's mouth , it became my desktop picture for a while at work. Several people commented on it and wondered... doubted even, if it was a real picture or some type of photoshopped deal. They certainly wouldn't buy that someone in this position could land such a trick and sail off for more. Then I find this video on H2uhO . Apparently, it's from the Wave competition at this year's PWA Grand Slam at Pozo Izquierdo, Gran Canaria . Wow! So, let's see... the video length is 6:49. That's 409 seconds at about 25 frames (or pictures) per second for a total of over 10,000 pictures. At a 1000 words each, that's over 10.2 million words... Nough said.

It's Good To Be Back

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Or is it... After spending time back east , I was eager to get back on the water and racing again. It had been several weeks. The guys did okay without me but the familiarity of sailing together (Don and Gordon for over 30 years and the three of us of nine) is a big comfort and advantage. So it felt good to be out on the water, in a good stiff breeze and gearing up for a race last Thursday evening. We got off the line fairly well as did several others. We had to hold our position for a while until the others tacked away (no wanting to duck three or four boats). We had Faux Pas below us and couldn't quite get the clean air we wanted but had no place to go. Finally after the boats above us tacked away, we were free to tack over on port. We continued for a while until our lift decreased and we tacked back to starboard.... "starboard... STARBOARD!"... BANG. Similar to this . After getting over the initial shock and briefly making sure Faux Pas was okay, I checked out the da

Did the Vikings have Mommy Boats?

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The Sea Stallion , 100-foot-long replica Viking longship departed a Danish fjord Sunday to sail across the North Sea to its home port in Ireland. It is the largest Viking warship ever rebuilt and with 65 crew will make the seven week voyage powered only by sails and oars. The ship will be the crews only home on the 1000 nautical miles long journey across the North Sea, into the Atlantic Ocean and south through the Irish Sea. The crew must fight through the toughest waters of Europe and some of the most challenging waters of the world north and west of Scotland. Do you think Vikings need a Mommy Boat ? Well certainly not real Vikings! But these... replica Vikings will be escorted by Cable One (a ship for hire). Test sailing is not safe "We've done everything we could to minimize any risks concering the historic test voyage of the Sea Stallion. For three years, the crew have practised in a long series of test sails, getting to know the ship and learning to sail it. No one have

Addicted to Blogging or Just a Geek

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Tillerman has been posting about the quizzes at mingle 2 ... First he found his blog rated as Parental Guidance Suggested . Turns out this blog came up with the same rating because of the words "shoot" and "hurt". Most recently he wondered: How Addicted to Blogging Are You? I found I am (according to the mingle 2 quiz ) 52% addicted to blogging. Then another quiz caught my eye. This one quantifies your geekness. With this quiz I find (what I already knew)... That I'm a geek albeit not over the edge... I may not be the Sci-Fi loving, always playing video games type of geek... But I recognize "/(bb|[^b]{2})/" as Shakespeare no problem... and here I was early on a Sunday morning checking in with Google Reader looking for the latest word on Race 7 . After seeing there was no racing today, I start scanning through other blogs and news and find someone is asking if I'm addicted to blogging. Na, my conclusion is that I'm a bit of a geek. How e

32nd Americas Cup... "Riveting"?

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It's game on with the Americas Cup. The regatta is all tied up at 2-2 which Tillerman points out has only happened once in the last seventy years. That would indicate the 32nd Americas Cup regatta is about as exciting as it gets. In fact, the third race was about as exciting as it gets. According to Scuttleblog , "The third race of the 32nd America’s Cup proved one thing – a yacht race television show can be riveting. Tight start, huge leads, major splits, 3 passes, a horrid leeward mark rounding – all in minimum winds - and a final winner that wasn’t known until mere boat lengths from the finish. This race set many records..." Or if you're a gambler, you can relate to the view on SailJuice that sailboat racing is sometimes a crap shoot... a really exciting crap shoot. So what's up with the anti-AC sentiment? I can understand apathy from people who can't relate to sailing at all or those who are disgusted by all the money poured into an AC campaign by billi

The RC is Always Right....

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Except when they're wrong and succumb to pressure and personal bias... Tillerman is at it again with another assignment. Last time, in response to his request for Worst Sailing Mistakes , I posted a story about my Protest Shoe . Overall the response provided many funny stories and a few intense ones. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt (emotionally or physically) in the making of these stories. This time the assignment is Top Race Committee Screw Ups . First and in general, these (for the most part) volunteers to a great job. We couldn't have fun racing without them. The good ones run a race or regatta in such a way you hardly know they're there. On the other hand... they do occasionally make mistakes. In a regatta on our local lake, we were racing on Sunday. IIRC, the points were quite close. We were setting up for what was likely the final race of the regatta. The committee put up the course label and the sequence was rolling. We made sure we new the course, studie

Emerald Cup: H20 Boa, S20 and Overall Winner

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Emerald Cup was a lot of fun this year. Several boats sailed really well and showed great improvement . Eve won a race and nearly trophied (which would have terminated Adam's novice skipper status!). Summerwind had a couple really good races. Pizzazz finished 3rd in the first race on Sunday. Way to go girls! Guano Girl finished 2nd in a race on Saturday and 3rd in the last race on Sunday (which was significant...). One Eyed Jack had a great regatta with three bullets and some other low numbers. Race two on Saturday was their worst finish. They tossed out a six. That race was also our worst... We were over early and tossed a four. Going into the last race we had seven points to One Eyed Jack's five (not counting the eventual toss outs). We needed to put a couple boats between us. It was a long race (triangle, windward, leeward) and things were looking pretty good. We were ahead of One Eyed Jack and it looked like we had the possibility of one boat between us but no guarantee

Little League Sailing

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There have been a few posts out there in the cyber sailing world about coaching from the sidelines as it were... When kids race solo (or single handed), they're sometimes followed around the course (at various distances...) by a parent. Such support boats shall now be referred to as Mommy Boats . The thoughtful parents follow at a distance. There's no yelling or obnoxious coaching. They're there in case of an emergency (meaning the boat is swamped and the kid has trouble righting the boat type of thing... not a "YOU NEED MORE VANG" emergency ). Not all Mommy Boats are as courteous and thoughtful of others... Imagine all of the little league parents being able to following their son or daughter around the field giving direction and "encouragement". Sometimes it's bad enough when they're relegated to the sidelines. My approach is to be in the same boat... racing together as a team. I'm sure this causes some problems too. There are just so

No Lido Racing

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Sailing and in particular racing, requires wind. Sometimes there's not enough for racing and you wait... It happens to everyone. Other times there's too much wind. Is that possible or is it a matter of having enough experience to handle the conditions? Are you experienced? Should you have to pass a test or are the conditions you race in the test in and of itself? When we raced in the Columbia Gorge in 2005 , the committee observed our collective ability during some practice racing. They used that information to gauge our ability to handle other conditions during the week and postpone racing as they saw fit. I think they did an excellent job. The wind speed yesterday was still in the upper teens (MPH) in the late afternoon and early evening. That's doable and even fun in a Santana 20 . I'm planning to race my Lido 14 with my son this summer in some weekly club races. Last night was our first opportunity now that school is out and other activities are complete. This

Memorial Day Regatta

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The now famous Memorial Day Regatta , first held in 1945 with some 23 boats participating, is now limited to 150 boats with competitors from all over the West Coast. It's fun to be part of such a great regatta at home. There were 21 Santana 20's on the line for a total of six races. The weather was quite nice... on Saturday and weird on Sunday. It was cloudy, cool, and the wind was all over the place making for very unpredictable racing. Even so... we improved our position from second place after day 1 to a one point lead for first going into the last race... Well that was our worst race in terms of our finish. It was also the most frustrating in terms of wind. With that result tossed out, we ended the regatta in second place behind a very strong boat (two former class champions). There's a pretty good story on the S20 class website . Another (less flattering) story made it into the Sunday edition of our local paper. It was funny listening to people (serious racers... ) co

That's a Lovely Broach

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Photo credit: Sean Trew. Pacific Fog In summarizing our SOCKS Regatta experience , I mentioned " BIG air on Saturday with lots of destruction , many DNC/DNS/DNF and our own spectacular wipe out..." Someone noticed the carnage from their house and started a thread on Sailing Anarchy . There were at least two Holder 20s that got swamped in the same downwind run we were on when we wiped out. We had just rounded the windward mark and our skipper noticed a couple Holders in front of us flying their kites. He basically said, "If Chris can do it, the we can too!" The two Holder skippers used to own Santana 20s and we've raced them before. So we did our set and got things cleaned up and started making gains on the (three) boats in front of us. I don't think any other S20s put up a kite. Well I think we all got hit by a big puff or some of those tanker waves... (or both). At any rate, things went from the ride of the weekend to a flaming broach in no time. I starte

H2O Boa wins 2007 SOCKS and Santana 20 District 6 Championship

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This years SOCKS Regatta was pretty cool for several reasons: First time sailing a Seattle Yacht Club sponsored regatta First time racing on Puget Sound at CYC Periodic views of the Olympics Massive tanker waves... Seeing a Mini Transat Zero in Seattle Eight keel boat fleets, six centerboard fleets and a whole lot of experienced sailors Nine races in two days BIG air on Saturday with lots of destruction , many DNC/DNS/DNF and our own spectacular wipe out... EYC S20's with a strong showing Winning the regatta and S20 District 6 Championship by one point

Communication: Key to Winning

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Maybe was because there's a regatta ( S.O.C.K.S. ) coming up in a few weeks... Maybe it was because we upgraded from our number 3 genoa to number 2. Maybe it was because the wind speed was more to our liking... (although it went light toward the end of the race). Whatever the reason, communication on the boat was (IMO) excellent! Good enough to win race 4 of the Spring Series. There are three of us on a Santana 20 : helm (skipper), middle and foredeck (that's me). On our boat, we clearly have a skipper but we also make decisions together. I think it started in the pre-race setup, carried through right to the start and ultimately the finish horn. The other two have been sailing together for over 30 years. I joined them about 9 years ago. We have our roles pretty well figured out as you might imagine. Much of the time there's just a collective flow of information. Questions come up periodically and someone responds to but generally we each provide information based on our

Speaking of embarrassing moments...

Sailing is a mystery to many people. They're not sure what makes the boat go (it's the wind right...?) nor what makes it stop. I found this video on Eli Boat . Apparently, even some sailors don't know what makes em go or stop... Ouch! Fortunately, I haven't even witnessed something like that. As for those who don't know what makes a sailboat go, I heard a good story from my skipper. He was out sailing his Santana 20 and came across a powerboat that was dead on the water . They apparently had engine trouble and Gordon offered to give them a tow. After they got over the shock of his offer, they accepted... not exactly sure how this was going to work. Well Gordon circled around them (because you really can't stop a sailboat) and indicated he was going to toss them a line (um, a rope) they should tie off on their bow (ah, that's the front...). These guys apparently thought they were going to pull a fast one on Gordon (who noticed they looked at each other and

Most Embarrassing Sailing Moment

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This story has been dubbed "Protest Shoe" : I've accepted a Group Writing Project assignment from Tillerman . Yes... a dingy sailor... Not holding that against him, he's got a reasonable idea to have some fun, build community and learn something in the process. You see the whole idea of blogging (or any online collaboration) is to get readers contributing rather than just consuming. He's asked that we "blog about the worst mistake or most embarrassing moment [we] had while sailing" and let him know about it. He'll post links to the results of our labor and Proper Course becomes the hub of sailing disasters... I don't know if this ranks as my most embarrassing sailing moment... I try to block them out as quickly as the come. This is, however, one moment... one embarrassing moment... that I remember (at least partially) and one that has a lesson. It's been several years now but I used to wear these red "salt washed" Sperry Stripers

Weird Wind...

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THE WIND-GNOME from Jonas Lie's "Weird Tales From Northern Seas" Maybe you've heard that it never rains on a golf course ... Sometimes I think the same applies to sailing in that it never rains on the lake but we all know better! Last night was Women Skipper night, race 1. It's done once per month and over the course of the season constitutes a series. For the past three years, Don and I have traded our skipper for a women and won the Women Skipper series. With the rain coming down in buckets at times, it seemed likely our first night with a new skipper would be interesting. As it turned out, not a drop of rain fell on us the entire night. That's not to say that rain wasn't falling... It's just that it was falling all around us! With the wind coming out of the SW (where we typically get rain ), the RC set up for a 6C which is a windward, leeward (once around) with a center finish on our Olympic circle. Our pre-race approach was conservative. We ch

No Wind....

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Sailboat racing is tons of fun... unless you don't have any wind. It's incredible how the anticipation of sailing, competition and comradery changes when everything shows up but the wind... The America's Cup has suffered from this problem and some have found creative ways to deal with the lack of wind and hence no racing... We didn't have this problem Thursday night. However, we didn't quite have enough wind... especially for Ol' No. 3 . It just doesn't get the boat up to hull speed in light air. So that puts us at a disadvantage which can be good. It gives us the opportunity to mix it up more with the fleet. We have to be more precise and mistake free in our maneuvers. We also need to make smarter decisions tactically because it's possible that other boats (with better speed) will also execute their jibes, mark roundings, etc. cleanly. Two mistakes cost us... probably a couple positions in this race. With a single triangle course, we approached the

Ol' No. 3 Good Enough

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We never break out the new hardware (aka sails) for Thursday nights. In fact, we don't always "upgrade" for every regatta. But typically, we're sailing older stuff than most. Here's our humble number 3 genny. There is a number 4... but we won't go there. This one has more sail repair tape than it should (weight aloft you know...). It's also quite a limp rag which is nice in light air (or is it "airs"?) as it just molds into shape. But this year, it's grown some additional character. When we came across the line winning the first race of the season , someone on race committee said, "Wow, how old is *that* sail?" Okay, so Gordon might have put Ol' No. 3 away a little wet last year. All I can say is mold is fast... Well okay, no one has ever claimed that mold is fast but this moldy oldie is 2-0 in the Spring series. Tonights course was a triangle (once around) with a tower finish (i.e. in front of the yacht club). With the wind o

Spring Series - Race 1

Well, not exactly 15 mph... The fairly steady 10mph wind during the day dropped to around 5mph for the race... Bummer... we like big air. Still racing is better than not racing. The RC chose a short 7b course (triangle, once around). We had a decent start (top three) but not lights out in a small fleet of six. The first leg was a little fluky. The advantage we achieved off the line vanished an we saw ourselves rounding the first mark in third. However, with a late wind shift it became apparent the two boats in front of us could not fetch the mark on starboard. The first boat to the mark attempted to shoot it... and ultimately the shift cost both boats a couple extra tacks within two boat lengths of the mark... Hmm, things are looking up. The second boat to the mark made it around. As we approached, the first boat was parked and forced to give us room. After a little contact, we rounded the windward mark and hoisted to get out of Dodge . The contact was inconsequential but they spun a

Wind and Rain

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These two natural "elements" come together on the bike as well as the boat. This time of year it's difficult to avoid either one in Oregon. As I've started bike commuting again, it occurred to me (...again) that wind is a problem for most sporting activities (as I rode into the wind). Not so with sailing! In fact, no wind is a big problem. As I pedaled into that head wind I thought this would be great... if I was sailing. When it comes to rain..., well I can usually do without the rain on bike and boat. The current situation, however, is a bit different. We sail on a flood control reservoir which is currently a bit low (compared to the ideal water control curve). I'm thankful to have to lake at all as it received a major repair over the summer of 2005. At the same time, I'm hoping for a wet spring even if it means riding (and sailing) in the rain. So, even though Brandon doesn't like the wind... I say let it blow... We're looking at about 15 mph o

Sailing and Bicycling

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The season for sailing and bicycling has returned. And that got me thinking in addition to getting ready. It occurred to me that one of the commonalities between sailing and bicycling that appeals to me is their mechanical nature. There are very little (if any) electronics involved. There are (generally) no motors involved. Virtually everything is mechanical. You have mechanical advantages all over the place: gears, levers, blocks (pulleys), etc. You have the use of friction in winches and brakes. You have to pick the ideal sail shape or gear to go where you want. And the other thing about all this is that you can see all of it.

SnowTrip: Episode IX - 01.27/28

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The annual Youth Group Snow Trip is lots of fun. Trevor has been before but usually as a stowaway... This year he was legit... a middle schooler! Even as an official rookie... he's a veteran tuber (not the starchy kind). Everyone has a good time.