March Madness is here which means college basketball and a call to the sail loft to make sure your new sail will be ready for the season opener, the Susan Hood Trophy Race. See below for season timely help from North Sails to get your 2018 ratings sorted. 

It's also nearly time to summon your crew to action and get the Summer chariot polished and ready for battle!  Well before that, make sure that you sign up on-line, the new website is up and running and ready to take your registration.  Get in before the early-bird deadline and save!

There is still plenty of off-water action going on, so peruse the newsletter and come out to one of our off-season events.

 

See you on the start line soon.

Joe Doris

Chair, Lake Ontario Offshore Racing

    

In 1969, Bruce Burgess opened the doors to The Rigging Shoppe Limited in Scarborough. Bruce was the master of rigging, supplies and cutting-edge safety related products. He spent his career building production rigging and masts for many of the boats we sail on today; Northern, Goman, Halman, PDQ and C&C just to name a few.  At its peak production The Rigging Shoppe (and Seaway Spars, a division of the business) was building over 500 masts per year.   Bruce and his wife Shirley have been happily retired in the Thousand Islands for years now.

Their daughter, Carolyn has carried on Bruce's legend. She has propelled this shoppe into a leader of safety and innovative products, while at the same time maintaining the custom rigging portion of the business that has made it famous for almost 50 years. Since the inception of this shoppe, the Burgess' have supported the offshore racers on Lake Ontario. Over the last 10 years, The Rigging Shoppe has been a valuable sponsor of the Lake Ontario 300 and LOOR.  Carolyn has raced in the LO300 at least 5 times both on the Scotch Bonnet and Main Duck course. Throughout the years Carolyn has provided us with many valuable safety tips and innovations through our roads shows, demonstrations and articles. The team at The Rigging Shoppe is passionate about offshore racing and eager to assist in providing a custom solution for every sailor who takes on the challenge.

 

Confessions of Offshore Racers (part deux)

        

The first of this year's talks took place at PCYC in February and was unanimously thought to be a lot of fun.  LOOR is changing the presentation format a bit this year, and it features YOU! 

Next up:  Whitby Yacht Club.

On April 4th, starting at 7:00 at WYC, your fellow sailors are going to be telling short (or 'tall') stories about their racing experiences.  Everyone is invited to join and share their own story.  We all have them.  (Yes, Main Duck Island, I'm talking to you!).

So come and enjoy a fun, relaxing evening, and visit the microphone yourself if you want.  There will be prizes for the best, funniest, or otherwise most worthy tale.