Some food for thought from Scuttlebutt on why you should diversify your crew. But be careful, you could get more exposure than you want in the Southside Sentinel. And in terms of bringing a Junior onto Oracle two recent attempts of mine failed for a very simple reason; my invitations were intercepted by the young man's spam filter. The only time this happened to me before was when a bland joke poking fun at an '04 Presidential candidate was intercepted by an employers profanity filter. The intended recipient has since changed jobs but not because his mail was blocked. The lesson I have learned from these event is don't depend solely on e-mail.

Read on for more about diversifying your crew.TEAM BUILDING

(In a three part series posted on the North Sails website, Tom McLaughlin tells how to make racing fun for the entire crew. Here's an excerpt.)

I have given some thought as to why one-design classes keep going year after year and why handicap racing ebbs and flows and never seems to produce large fleets. I think it's because with one-design sailing, when you finish racing you go into the same clubhouse, you get to know your competitors and re-sail the race and build friendships. The social side of things brings the fleet together, and everyone-even the guy in last place-gets their moment in the sun.

For example, the problem on Long Island Sound is that the racing fleet meets in the middle of the Sound from 20 or 30 different clubs and harbors, and after the race everybody goes back to their marina-at your home club you may know the crews of only two or three boats in the race. So because the social side is missing from a lot of handicap racing, an owner has to cultivate it on his own boat. Integrating your boat with people of a variety of ages is good, and a mix of women and men is good, because it just makes the conversation on the boat a hell of a lot more interesting. A group of jocks-you know, guys just run out of conversation pretty quickly. Or else things degenerate to the lowest common denominator! But if you bring a young lady on the boat or a 14-year-old kid who wants to learn, suddenly everybody acts his or her age and it changes the dynamic. The jock stuff is kind of amusing once or twice, but season after season it would get pretty boring.

More owners need to say, "Look, we really are pretty hopeless in a lot of areas. Let's get somebody aboard who can teach us, and let's work on our weak points." Getting some coaching is underutilized, I think because many owners are so high functioning. They are very successful in their careers, and so they feel somewhat diminished if they have to go ask for help in racing their boats. Yet the same folks would have no trouble getting a golf or tennis lesson from the club pro at the country club. - Tom McLaughlin, full story: http://na.northsails.com/NortheNews/May05.htm#NorthPeople