Ender Team Member takes to the Ice

Last week Ender-Racing Team member and avid DN sailor Mike Rehe competed in the DN World and North American Championships here in the Midwest. Most of you know Mike from all the sailing he has done around the club and around the country, but in the winter Mike is one of the top ice-boaters in the country and works with 3 time world-champ Ron Sherry at Composite Concepts; designing, building, and testing the latest in DN sail, rig, and runner technology. After having a few conversations with Mike during the regatta I realized that things were not going as well as he would have wanted them to. He finished 35th out of 118 at the Worlds, and 41st out of 99 at the North Americans....he was shooting for the top 10. According to Mike he was a bit off the pace with the leaders; we're thinking that he changed too many factors leading up to the event. New sail, new rig, new plank, and a new hull.....in a sport where a 1% drop in speed could be the difference between top 5 and mid fleet, changing everything at once might have been a bit too much to overcome. That's a mistake that every sailor needs to take note of, in any class, at any level. We change things all the time, our rig tune, our sails, our crew....it is important to change one thing at a time in order to measure the results against a constant. When we change too many things at once we lose sight of what is working and what is not. If we take a systematic approach to the process we can keep our trial results in order and our race results going up.

Check back in to the blog as I am going to attempt to get a debrief out of Mike and possibly some video. If you have never seen this stuff before you need to check it out. F'n cool!! I'm sure if you buy Mikey a beer at the bar he will bring you up to speed...also, congratulate him on his new girlfriend. :)

Quick Update:

For those of you who actually read this blog there have been several changes in our lives over the past few months; in all honesty it has been hard to keep up with them ourselves, let alone update the blog for everyone.

First off, I started a new job in December in Chicago working for Geneva Trading. Many of you may have heard of Geneva Trading, who's founding partners are all world-class sailors; most notably Tom Freitag, Art Bererton, and Brian Porter (Full Throtle). I took a job designing and trading quantitative strategies for the firm...things are going well, but home always calls. The decision to stop sailing full time and pursue a different path came on the heels of my brother Evan's passing. Evan fought Lukemia for 21 months before it got the better of him; and from there I decided that it wouldn't be fair to him if I continued to half-ass my life. So Ender-Racing has always been about sailing.....and the occasional political rant....now I am dedicating it completely to the Ender-Racing team and the acheivement of our goals in Match Racing.

The move to Chicago was timely when you consider that Don Wilson is opening his US Match Race Center this summer here in Chicago. The venue is being funded by Don, and directed by Bill Hardesty; which means that world-class Match Racing talent will be in and out of here weekly, not to mention all the women's Olympic teams that will use the facilities to practice. The timing and the placement could not be better for us.

Mike Rehe and I decided after last years USMRC that we were going to put forth a serious effort in the events from now on. Our goal is to win the 2010 USMRC at Bayview Yacht Club, and we have a two year Match Race plan in place to get there. As the sailing season gets going again we will be updating the blog frequently, so please check back in for regatta debriefs and other information.....and political rants (damn Pelosi!!).

Also, the Ender-Racing team is not exclusive; we are open to anyone with a passion for Match Racing and an Objectivist philosophy. Good luck, and good sailing.