My New Year’s Resolution

by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News
We start the 2020 year with 12 months, 52 joyful weeks, 365 lovely days, 8760 memorable hours, blessings of 525600 minutes, and the 31536000 thankful seconds.

That’s a lot of opportunity for change, also known as New Year’s Resolutions, which are always fun fodder for the Curmudgeon’s Observation. Here are some favorites:

• No ‘New Year – New Me’ here. I’ll be the same honest a-hole I was last year.

• “Making New Year’s resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that requires personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.” – Eric Zorn, columnist, Chicago Tribune

• My New Year’s Resolution is to stop hanging out with people who ask me about my New Year’s Resolutions.

• “Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.” – Oprah Winfrey

• This year I resolve to make better bad decisions.

So it is with complete ignorance that I launch my resolutions, and as has been preached to me in the past, follow through increases with public declaration. Focusing on our Alerion Express 28, here’s what I resolve to do:

Enter races earlier: As lovely as it is to have online registration, it also breeds complacency. We look to see who has entered rather than diving in. Entries breed more entries so earlier commitment helps grow participation

Practice: With this boat, we have a casual approach to racing, but everyone has a better time when they know what they are doing, so we will work on that before the starting gun.

Get organized: We like sailing with different people, particularly people that don’t often get out on keelboats, but we have a tendency to make these calls close to the race. As a result, we are often scrambling which isn’t fun.

Drink of the day: After race beverages are always a consideration but they tend to be the same. This year we’ll mix it up.

Replace something: Nothing inspires like new stuff on the boat. Last year it was a light air spinnaker sheets, re-rigging the spinnaker pole systems, and a new mainsail. Maybe this year we’ll replace the cooler…

What are your 2020 goals? Send them to editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com