District 7 Laser Regattas

Each year, SVSC hosts regattas as a part of District 7 of the International Laser Class Assocation - North America

MASCOMA SPRING LASER REGATTA

MASCOMA  FALL LASER REGATTA

September 19th, 2009 :  Notice of Race (PDF); Results : Photos

The Griesbach Regata

Saturday, August 1st, 2009 : Results : Photos

Contact: Bill Fontaine (william.fontaine at Dartmouth.EDU)

2009 Griesbach Regatta - Notice of Race

SVSC is the host of the annual Griesbach Regatta

Description: All competitors are welcome!  This is a sloop regatta scored using the Portsmouth Handicap Number System (USPN). Even if you're new to racing, you're welcome to join in the fun. There will be a brief presentation on the racing rules before the skipper's meeting.

History

Marga and Ernie Griesbach came to Enfield for many years as guests at Kluges.  In 1986 they bought a condo on Lake Mascoma and in 1990 moved to a house in Canaan.   Ernie met Dick Lathrop, who was manager of the Dartmouth Sailing club, in the summer of 1988 in a rescue operation.  When Ernie was having problems one afternoon on the lake sailing his "beer cooler", as Dick described it, Dick motored over to help him.  They became good friends, and Dick later helped Ernie find a good boat, a Rhodes 19.  When Ernie died from complications of surgery in 1992, Marga donated the Rhodes to the sailing club and Dick initiated the Griesbach regatta, which has become an annual event in Ernie's memory.  Marga also had a handsome trophy made for the regatta.

 
The history of the Griesbachs is remarkable.  Marga and Ernie were both German Jews.  Marga was captured by the Gestapo in Germany and taken to a ghetto in Riga, Latvia.  She was later shipped to a concentration camp, Stutthof, in Poland and then to a labor camp.  Those who were able to walk were marched back to Germany, but Marga was able to escape with her mother, who suffered severe frostbite.

Ernie's family moved from Germany to France in 1933 because of oppression.  When the Germans invaded France, Ernie's sister was arrested by the French and placed in a camp, Guers, for German Jews.  The rest of Ernie's family escaped.  The sister, however,  was released when the firm that she had worked for indicated that she was an essential employee.  As she was heading back toward her home in Bordeaux, she stopped in the marketplace of a small town and remarkably bumped into her family, as they were fleeing.  The reunited family headed to Spain, crossing the Pyrenees on foot.   They reached the US in 1941.