Another Round Of Racing On Lake St. Clair

DETROIT (WWJ) - About 800 sailors will be on Lake St. Clair Saturday for another round of racing in the National Offshore One Design Sailing regatta.

Known as the NOODS, there are about 100 boats entered this year in various classes, or groups of identical boats or nearly identical boats in terms of their theoretical speed.

The race is hosted by Bayview Yacht Club in Detroit, and it sounds pretty prestigious, and it is - in sailing circles, but you wouldn't necessarily know it by what the winners get.

The winners of the individual classes get flags and  t-shirts and maybe a trophy.  The overall winner of the event gets a crew-invite to  the British Virgin Islands to race in the Championship against the overall winner from NOODS held in seven other cities across the country.

Loretta Ray is a scorekeeper for the NOODS. She's also immediate past commodore of the Crescent Sail Yacht Club in Grosse Pointe Farms.

Despite the number of entries, about three times the number of cars that started last weekend's Indy 500,  scorekeeper Ray says it's really not a particularly exciting event for spectators.
"I think there are about 100 boats, but realize on some of the boats there can be as many as five or eight crew - so that's a lot of people," says Ray.

She says depending on which part of the race is going on at the time, your best place to see some of the boats with their white mains and jibs and colorful spinnakers is along Lakeshore Drive through the Pointes.