"DSK" wrote in message

I bet so. I am tempted to look for an MC, but you say they are not
comfortable? How so?

No more uncomfortable than any other scow. But a scow is a scow. You sit
barely above the water line with your knees in your face (the cockpit sole
is only about a foot below the gunnels), and the only time one is really
comfortable is when heeled well to leeward and sitting high on the weather
deck. When sitting low on the leeward deck to reduce wetted surface area by
raising the weather part of the hull out of the water, one feels like he's
about to get wet. And of course the bilge boards, when up, protrude into
the crew's seating area. One is almost tempted to sail solo rather than
listen to the crew bitch about this.


It's partly that traffic has gotten so much worse, and partly that the
good old days of camping & partying on the lawn are mostly over. Even
the avid dinghy racing clubs are getting stuffy these days, it seems.

We've found this to be the case as well. One particularly pretentious club
in Michigan, threw some of us out of their dining room one evening during a
Snipe regatta because we weren't dressed in our blue serge blazers and
Breton Red slacks. It would appear that some of these purported *yacht
clubs* take that moniker far too seriously. Most are just sailing clubs,
but don't realize it.

Lightnings are fun boats, a bit of a crew-punisher but nothing near as
bad as a Thistle or a J-22. We've had some great times in ours.... my
wife felt that the Lightning fleets we ran around in were not friendly.
But they're nowhere near as bad as some of the arrogant butt-heads I
used to cross tacks with in 470s.

One phenomenon we're seeing more now than ever before is a tendency of clubs
to eschew off lake sailors. For some arcane reason their memberships have
concluded that if one doesn't own lakefront property he is unfit to sail
with the YC. Of course this typically eliminates some of the best sailors
from those clubs, and the members simply can't understand why their seasonal
club champions can't compete worth **** at regional and national regattas.
Our local Lightning fleet isn't opposed to off-lakers, but does have it's
communal nose a bit too high in the air for our tastes. We'd love to sail
with them and clobber their big dogs, but probably won't be willing to put
up with the arrogance.

Max