2023 Season Re-cap

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Team BlueJ doubled down on the great results of 2022 and ratcheted it up even higher for ANOTHER ‘best year’, taking 6 first-place trophies in PHRF 1 series or cups, including winning the most prestigious series at WYC, the Thursday evening ‘Summer Series’, which is the combined T and G series.



The Results:

  • 1st G Series
  • 2nd T Series
  • 1st Sunset Series
  • 1st M Series
  • 1st Woman’s Bay Series
  • 1st Burton Cup
  • 1st MS Cup


Fun details:

We OWNED Thursday nights, and were one place away from running a perfect 4-win sweep of the Thursday Series. Also very proud of Jodi winning the Woman’s Bay Series. Normally our ace main trimmer, she is also a solid driver. And while she has only entered 3 Woman’s events over the years, she has won all three! 

Also we changed bowman in the middle of the season, kind of like swapping the transmission of a race car in the middle of the race! But our new guy Ethan is a rock star, and fits the program perfectly. SO happy he is onboard for next year.

Jean our pit person is the glue that keeps everything together. She runs all the maneuvers and trains in anyone that comes onto the boat. We suck whenever she has to miss it race, which is thankfully almost never.

Keith our trimmer is a huge part of the team, not only for his great trimming, but for his keen insight on tactics that help me get us around the track as fast as possible. And being British, his humor and taste in beer is a refreshing add to the team!

We got new a full suite of new sails mid-season, and they are amazing. DP lite-skin GPX tri-radial, and the 2+2 batten configuration give us much more control in light airs.

As the marina closed a month early due to dredging, the club did not sail the Commodore Cup and the Frostbite cups, limiting our full win potential.

Some of the numbers:

Attended races: 36

Races completed 26 (difference is races abandoned, usually due to lack of wind)

Podiums 26 - Yes, every race on the podium


And this on a boat that is widely considered the ‘Queen’ of the ‘cruising’ sailboats on Lake Minnetonka, and used equally for racing as well as full-on cruising.

And a fun point - while we usually do not sail in the Saturday and Sunday races until the Burton Cup, we still managed to be the top PHRF 1 boat in the WYC Boat of the Year competition, which counts a weighted sum of all a boats WINS in the season. 


Some fun pics that show the season, in mostly random order due to Google Blogger. Included are most of the available options for our trophy picture from our club photographer, and a bunch by world-famous sailing shooter JH Peterson:























































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