Stamford Yacht Club and FBYC Mix It              Up on and Off the Water                 by M. Kondracky
	On a cold December Sunday some JY's from FBYC mixed it up with the JY sailors at Stamford Yacht Club.  The first order of the day was to shovel the ice and snow out of the boats.  Stamford had a unique method to do this.  The trick was hot water piped to the boats through a hose.  If you have to frostbite, this is the way to do it.  After we rigged the boat we had to pull it down the dock while avoiding falling on our buttocks from all the snow.  Again our hosts were exteremely helpful in lauching the boats.  As I passed through the club house, after using the facilities, a grandmother exclaimed, " Are You Going Sailing?". I replied in the affimative, and she said "Keep Dry".  Good advice.  We went off to sail, while she brought her grandchild to visit Santa at the club.         The forecast was for light winds out of the West.   Well they were wrong.  A fresh breeze built and so did a light chop.  Hey all we need is about 4 knots of current and I would feel right at home.  The course for the races were windward leewards, with a short upwind finsih.  We started at the boat end of the line, and were rewarded as the wind went right.  With short courses tactics were at a premium as many boats arrived at the marks at the same time.  As the day went on the breeze continued to build and there were a few capsizes.  The wind went to Southwest big time making it hard to get off the starting line.  It was tricky starting on port, and starting on starboard was no picnic either.  The R.C. got off six races, and it was a blast.  Bob Leary came out on the committe boat and took loads of pictures.             After the races we were hosted to hot soup, and cold drinks.  It was great to socialize with the Stamford sailors and make plans for SYC sailors to come over to Essex.
		Results: 1.  Gilman Paradis (FBYC)              13 2.   Healey Merritt                           14 3.   Kondracky  Formica (FBYC)      24 4.   Anderson  Okun                        26 5.   Nightengale Nightengale             32 6.   Hubbard Moors                         40 7.   Austin Hogan                             46 8.   McGuire McGuire                      47 9.   Buns Schroeder                          47 10. Smith Wussler                            51 11. Billik Billik                                  52