(Wahpeton)—More than 150 sailers are expected in the Iowa Great Lakes over the next week and-a-half as the Inland Lakes Yachting Association will be holding it’s championship regatta on West Lake Okoboji. Phil Petersen of the Okoboji Yacht Club, which will be hosting the event, tells KUOO news it starts tomorrow (Wed.)…(click here for comment.) “They’ll start on Wednesday, August 7th with “C” boats that we race here coming in probably an additional 20 or 30 boats will come here to join the Okoboji sailers. They’ll sale Thursday, Friday, Saturday. They will then have a trophy presentation and leave. Then the “A” boats which are the much bigger boats that we have around the midwest, they are 38 feet long, they will come in late Saturday afternoon and they will sail Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. They’ll have a trophy presentation Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday is a bye day. And then Thursday the 15th the “E” boats and “MC” boats will sail at the same time on Thursday, Friday, Saturday morning. And then that Saturday afternoon there will be another trophy presentation and that will conclude the 10 day regatta.”
While all the races will be held on West Lake Okoboji, Petersen says it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what part of the lake they’ll be on as the course is dependant on wind direction. He says the races will begin around 10:00 a.m. or so each day with up to three races per day…(click here for comment.) “The wind sometimes has not come up and stabilized until about 10:00. So the normal thing will be to start a race at 10:00 which will take about an hour, then they’ll have a short break and they’ll do the second race. That takes them to about 12:30. They’ll have lunch on the water with the lunch the brought along in a bag, and then they’ll sale a third race after lunch, then they would sale in. They’ll be sailing in and out of the Yacht Club and their mooring the boats in Little Miller’s Bay at night.”
Power boat operators are requested to stay out of that area and to keep their distance from the race course…especially the start and finish lines.
Petersen says six lakes typically host the Inland Championship Regatta. He says the last time it was here was about five years ago…(click here for comment.) “There’s only a few lakes in the midwest that can accomodate a regatta this size. You need a big lake, you need a big facility, you need lots of members to accomodate all the jobs that need to be done, so we’re very fortunate. We’ve got everything going for us. The one thing we don’t have is distance. Most of the sailers come from Wisconsin so it can be a seven hour drive for them to get here. When the sail on Lake Mendota or Geneva or Green Lake or Oshkosh they can maybe get there in an hour and-a-half. So we don’t always draw as many boats here as they do in Wisconsin but we think we have a great hospitality and we have more fun, so…”
Petersen says sailing will be abandoned if winds are under four miles-per-hour or exceed 25 miles-per-hour, or if there is lightning in the area.
