Now that we have reached the mid-point of the sailing season, it’s time to take a look at how the G.O.T.-Flashes Leaderboards are shaping up. The Podium is currently occupied by (you guessed it!) Ken Brown at 30 days, David Werley with 29, and Terry Hart at 28. They are followed closely by “The Bob’s” (Bush and Shapiro) with 27 and another Werley (Jonette) at 26. As I write we have 6 people that have made it to 25 and 9 people that are over 20. All in all, 110 people have logged 987 (almost a thousand!!) days so far this year.

That is fantastic participation in the Lightning Class. We are well on our way to topping last year's totals.

Looking at all of this, I have to keep coming back to Ken Brown, clearly a rising powerhouse. A year ago he was simply a wonderful guy sailing for fun on a small lake near Kansas City. And while he is still all of that, he has also started a new fleet (#296 – Kansas City on Lake Jocomo, currently 9th on the Fleet Leaderboard) and word is currently filtering back east that he’s scouting other lakes in Kansas looking for (and finding!) other Lightning sailors. Give this guy another year or two and he’ll have his own District! It almost makes me wish I was still sailing from Denver and making those long treks across the great plains east to big regattas. If I was still doing that stopping at Lake Jocomo to rig the boat and sail with Ken would be high on my bucket list, maybe some of the Fleet building magic would rub off!

There’s a great idea – what if we ALL showed up at Lake Jocomo for a sail with Ken, wouldn’t that be a hoot! Yea, a Lightning road trip, that’s the thing. After all, it’s only a 616 mile detour from Sheboygan to Lake Jocomo, that’s an afternoon drive out on in the mid-west. It almost makes me want to break out my old maps and gas up the car!

Get out there!

Bill Cabrall

G.O.T.-Flashes Blog

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