Randy Rice during a practice race with downtown Jacksonville in the background.

The Coach TCA aspect of the Thistle Class continues to be hugely popular. We've created a concentrated version of the program that is conducted on Friday at the Orange Peel Regatta – called Coach TCA Concentrate. Thistle Class sailors from all over the country will be gathering to help one another become better sailors. This year we are again very fortunate to have sailmakers Skip Dieball of Quantum Sails and Greg Fisher of North Sails to share their expertise. We will also have class veterans Dave Hansen, Paul Abdullah and many others on hand to help out. The learning opportunities begin at 1030 hrs in the rigging area of the Florida Yacht Club where long time Thistle sailors will be available to help with tuning and rigging questions. Don't worry if you can't be there right at 1030 you can join us whenever you make it down. The classroom session will begin at 1200 hrs. We will launch boats prior to the classroom session in order to maximize our time on the water. The classroom session will highlight a few brief topics for about an hour and then we'll hit the water for a couple of hours. There will be coaches available for those wishing to have someone sail with them. If you want to have in-boat coaching, we need you to indicate so on your registration. Sometimes teams wish to pass up the in-boat coaching to sail with their team and be critiqued from a coach boat. The plan will be to sail a bit and then begin practice starts at 1400. We will use a 3 minute sequence in order to get in more starts. We will have 3 practice starts followed by the start of the practice race consisting of a short windward leeward course with the start/finish line in the middle. This will be repeated several times with coaching taking place both in and out of the boats. We will also video tape the activity for later discussion. The seminar is completely free of charge and will be a great opportunity to learn how to sail the Thistle faster for sailors of all experience levels. Of course the schedule is flexible based on wind and weather conditions.

The teams of Randy Rice, Donald Obst and Kevin Sheehan during a practice race.