This last weekend was the now famous Go For The Gold regatta at Scotts Flat Lake CA and the race management outdid themselves again pulling off a great 5 race series and a great Saturday night BBQ and party.

This years Go For The Gold event could have been billed the "U20 keeping it in the family regatta" as every boat except for one had family members racing on board.  As an example, on "Cinderella Story", we sailed with my 8 and 5 year old daughters Isabel and Kathryn, my brother Bill and his 11 year old daughter Elizabeth. It was quite a sight to see our 3 girls hiked out on the rail with the dads pulling the strings and driving (My wife/skipper Jennifer was off nailing down a 3rd in class in her Banshee.) In addition , Kim and Trent Watkin's "UFO" sailed with Trent's Mom and his brother Eric (a great musician who kept the party going well into Saturday night.) "Babe" (#155) made her West Coast debut with Pat and Bill Andrew, my folks, and two seasoned U20 crewmembers, Ryan and Ned onboard. Geoff Gardner rocketed around the course to win the regatta with 3 friends including a Dad/Daughter crew team. Salsa sailed with the usual suspects of Father/Son Steve and Matt, and Matt's wife onboard and won the 4th race by a mile! "Stella" (#156) made her West Coast racing debut with owners Jim and Allyson Jackson and family friends aboard. The Stouts on "Forty Two" made the 600 mile trek from Utah to race as a couple and were in the hunt many times during the weekend.

As mentioned above, Geoff Gardner and team on Ricochet showed their skill in the shifty lake conditions by putting together a consistent regatta to take home the miniature treasure chest with a little nugget of real gold in it. John and Dave on Enigma took 2nd with 15pts on a tiebreaker with Cinderella Story.
The Stouts won an award for furthest traveled, Kathryn Andrew (5 yrs old) won an award for youngest crewmember and Trent Watkins gets an honorable mention for tacking and retrieving Isabel Andrew's beloved cap which fell overboard during race 2 causing a great deal of distraction/stress on Cinderella Story during that particular race. When Trent sailed up to us afterward wearing the little lavender cap, there was an audible sigh of relief on our boat as Isabel's serious funk turned to happiness once again. I believe Trent should get redress for assisting a cap (and 8ry old girl) in distress during race 2 (thanks Trent and Team UFO!)

Anyway, the Saturday evening BBQ was great and Trent's brother/crew Eric took over after the warm up band left as the late night entertainment playing his guitar and singing songs for the hardcore partiers. All in all the weekend was fun and sometimes challenging but definitely worth the trip. See you in a couple of weeks at the NAs and then at Huntington Lake on July 15th and 16th!

ULTIMATE 20 OVERALL			R	A	C	E	S	POINT	FINISH
SAIL	SKIPPER	CLASS	1	2	3	4	5	TOTAL	PLACE
144	Geoff Gardner	U20	1	1	1	2	2	7	1
97	D.Kitchen/J.Buchanan	U20	3	6	2	3	1	15	2
153	John Andrew	U20	2	2	4	4	3	15	3
27	Trent Watkins	U20	5	3	3	5	5	21	4
94	Steve / Matt Boroughf	U20	4	4	10	1	4	23	5
155	Bill / Pat Andrew	U20	7	7	5	6	6	31	6
142	Tom Stout	U20	6	5	6	9	9	35	7
156	Jim / Alison Jackson	U20	8	8	9	7	7	39	8
2	Mark Engelhardt	U20	9	9	9	9	9	45	9