Welcome to winter - a little early this year. The severe weather cancelled many activities last weekend, including frostbiting. It was not the huge snow and cold weather that kept the sailors on shore on Sunday, December 7, as this is the weather for which frostbiting was named. But it was the high winds that present dangerous boating that prevented our hearty racers from enjoying what would otherwise have been a great sail on Manhasset Bay. At least the sun cooperated by the afternoon, and there was a lot of time to enjoy the winter wonderland that Mother Nature provided us. A quick look at the upcoming frostbite schedule, provided by Herb Schmidt, Winter Racing chairman, indicates a lot of sailing is in store in the near future. Regular Sunday afternoon racing will continue on December 14 and 21, but there will be no racing on Sunday, December 28. The next racing day is Thursday, January 1, starting with the Frostbite YC Past Commodore's Race at 1 p.m. Informal racing will commence immediately at the conclusion of the Commodore's Race. The New Year's Regatta will take place on Saturday and Sunday, January 3-4, with racing starting at 1 p.m. on Saturday, followed by the Wassail Bowl and the Frostbite YC Annual Meeting. On Sunday, January 4, racing begins at 11 a.m., with the Award Ceremony immediately following, approximately 4 p.m.

The Yacht Racing Association of Long Island Sound (YRA of LIS) held their 108th Annual Meeting last Sunday, December 7th at Larchmont YC at the Junior Club House. Among the 70- 80 people attending this combined business meeting, awards ceremony and cocktail party were local sailors Sue Miller, and Beth and Greg Danilek. This year the program included a video presentation and talk by Rich du Moulin, who recounted his and Rich Wilson's record breaking trip aboard the Great American II, which beat the time set by the clipper ship, Sea Witch, from Hong Kong to New York. Some 360,000 school children followed the adventure of Great American II on a daily basis through the sitesALIVE! educational program and were schooled in math, science, history, language arts, and the hard lessons of life at sea, through unique Internet-based programs. In addition, through the Newspaper in Education program, the voyage raised awareness of sailing while bringing education alive, as 25 newspapers around the country, including LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Time, NY Newsday, Baltimore Sun, Boston Herald, with a readership of about nine million, ran weekly stories that were distributed to teachers who signed up for the program.

The annual meeting and award followed Rich's presentation. Three YRA Discretionary Awards were presented this year. The Ned Anderson Achievement Award, which is the YRA's highest honor, recognizes outstanding service by an individual to yacht racing on Long Island Sound. The award is given to an amateur sailor who sails on Long Island Sound, and who is a member of the YRA. Established in 1961, the first recipient of this prestigious award was Briggs Cunningham. This year the YRA presented the Ned Anderson Achievement Award to Rich du Moulin for his contribution to sailing. The Roger H. Shope Trophy, the YRA's newest award is named after the YRA's 34th president and was established in 1998 to honor outstanding achievement in race management. Roger Shope is a familiar name in this community, as he and his wife, Jean, spent many years on their boat, Resolute, running races in Manhasset Bay and on Long Island Sound. The award's first recipient was Laurence Ehrhardt. This year the Roger H. Shope Trophy was presented to Sue Miller for her excellence in Race Committee work. Sue has a long history of Race Committee work, including Manhasset Bay Race Week, The Manhasset Bay Fall Series, The Challenge Cup and the Queens Cup. When Sue is not on Race Committee, she can be seen out on Manhasset Bay during the summer, racing each weekend with John Browning and Stephanie Baas on their Sonar, Ping. The Arthur P. Davis - Beach Point Yacht Club Trophy is the YRA's oldest award. It was established in 1955 to recognize yachting achievement on Long Island Sound. It has been used to recognize both an outstanding single achievement in running an event or championship, or to recognize the long-term contributions of a particular member club or organization. The first winner was the American Yacht Club. This year Indian River YC and Riverside YC won the Arthur P. Davis Award for hosting the Etchells World Championship. In 1966, Manhasset Bay YC, Knickerbocker YC and Port Washington YC won this award for forming the Cow Bay Racing Association, which runs all the racing that occurs on Manhasset Bay. Harman Hawkins (MBYC), Ed du Moulin (KYC) and Duke Dayton (PWYC), Race Committee Chairmen at their respective clubs, came up with the idea of combining the responsibilities of race management, which still is in existence today, with the addition of North Shore YC. Look for the YRA Season Awards next week.

This year's YRA officers, elected at the meeting last Sunday, are: President: James J. Farrell, Riverside YC; Vice Presidents: Walton Alder, New York YC and Jonathan Nye, Indian Harbor YC; Treasurer: Malcolm D. Clarke, Jr., American YC; Secretary: Ellen Sykes, New York YC; Class of 2006: Arthur Kass, Knickerbocker YC and William Kirkpatrick, Centerport YC, both for a three year term. The Nominating Committee included Eric Wallischeck, Chairman, Bruce Cook, Eric Kreuter, Greg Danilek and Mary Savage.

The YRA has been serving local racing sailors since 1895, and is dedicated to promoting safe, fair and challenging sailboat racing throughout Western Long Island Sound. There are over 65 member clubs and nearly a thousand individual members of YRA. Seven hundred boats are registered in the PHRF fleet, racing in both spinnaker and non-spinnaker classes. In addition, there is an active IMS fleet, and several offshore one-designs: J-44, J-120, J-35, J-105, J-30, J-92, J-80, Mumm 30s and Express 37s. Top inshore one-design classes include Vanguard 15s, Etchells, Sonars, Lightnings, Flying Scots, Shields, Lasers, IODs, Ideal 18s and Interclubs. The YRA provides services for individual sailors and support for local clubs and class organizations. For more information about the YRA, visit their website at www.yralis.org.

For those readers who are looking for a great nautical gift for a spouse, family member or friend, you may want to take a look at the Scuttlebutt Sailing Club Library. Scuttlebutt is an on-line daily sailing newsletter, and one of its readers harmlessly asked in one of the issues for some nautical book title suggestions, the 'buttheads responded in force. Now over 100 highly recommended books are listed in their library. While not included in the Scuttlebutt list (an obvious oversight), there are two great books by local authors. Ed du Moulin's America's Cup and Me: Recollections of 63 Years and 7 Campaigns, is a captivating read as well as the quintessential story of this most famous and prestigious of sailing trophies. Alan Dinn, whose mother was a Purdy, has written a wonderful history of the Purdy Boat Yard, relating the bygone era of classic race boats and cruisers. Boats by Purdy tells of the famous Aphrodite, and talks of other boats with names like Dixie Flyer, Hotsy Totsy, Baby Bootlegger, and Baby Shadow. There's a lot of local history in this book. Both books are available at the Dolphin Book Store. Titles suggested by the Scuttlebutt Sailing Club Library: The Proving Ground by G. Bruce Knecht: a gripping story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race in which boats were lost and sailors perished while others carried on in cyclone conditions. Walter Cronkite labeled this "a sailing masterpiece." North to the Night by Alvah Simon is a fantastic account of Mr. Simon and his wife's adventure to spend the winter at the North Pole frozen in the packed ice. Also, Fastnet Force 10 by John Rousmaniere; Sailing Alone Around the World by Slocum; Endurance - Shackelton by John Rousmaniere. And two very special books - First You Must Row a Little Boat by Bode. This little volume is a wonderful blend of one man's youthful development of love for the sport, and the life lessons that came from that experience. If you know sailing as an avocation, or want to introduce someone to the love of the sport, this is the book to provide. It is a delightful quick read and will actually fit in some larger Christmas stockings. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers: a great yarn and a wonderful read in several ways. It was the original English spy novel. It alerted the British to the potential threat from Germany. For sailors, it is a wonderful treatise on shoal water sailing. Your columnist has read all of these books, and can personally recommend them. And the Dolphin Book Store will be happy to order them for you. For more titles, see www.sailingscuttlebutt.com.