2009 JY15 North American Championship Report
Meals and Races
Day one,
nice cool morning, wind 6 to 8 out of the East and we only hope it holds.
Forecast is for 5 or so all weekend.
Skippers meeting on time at 11 a.m., we all head out onto the lake and
the wind promptly dies. We drifted
around for three hours before the committee finally called it a day at around
3:30 in the afternoon. Day one
summary: 3 meals, no races.
Day two,
9:30 a.m. It’s beginning to look
like a repeat of yesterday. We have
little or nothing all morning thus far and the forecast doesn’t bode well for
the remainder of the day. There is
a high parked a couple of hundred miles north of us that is effecting the entire
southeast. It is not supposed to begin moving off until sometime Monday
afternoon.
Day two,
10:30. We postponed on shore. The committee finally called us out at 12:30 for a
1:15 start time. The wind had filled in from the North at 3-6 but looked pretty
solid. The order of the day was to
somehow stay in pressure (easier said than done). Cheryl and I started at the
boat and headed left with the early lead. We played the shifts as much as we
could but concentrated more on pressure. We tacked on lifts more than once to
keep from sailing out of the breeze.
We rounded the top mark in first, with Elise Annis and Rachel second.
The downwind leg was brutal.
Elise and her 250 lb total crew weight motored by us and rounded the
leeward mark in the lead. We were a
little faster and a little higher in the next upwind leg and then she decided to
go left and sail out of the breeze. The
committee shortened the course at the top mark and we ended up winning with Bo
and Jenny 2nd and Jim Holder 3rd.
We waited a while longer for breeze but it never came. Day 2 summary: 3
meals, 1 race.
Day 3,
the decision was made to start an hour early and stay an hour longer in the
hopes that we would see wind. Woke
up to 6-8 knots out of the north and were looking forward to finally being able
to do some racing. We got to the
race course and were able to pull off one race before the wind died again.
Once again the trick was to stay in pressure.
Our closest competition was Bo and Jenny Samuelson and we are able to get
ahead of them and cover them for the remainder of the race.
We won the race while they finished 3rd behind Lisa and Mark
Allen who were beginning their comeback after an 8th in the 1st
race. The wind promptly died at the
end of the race then filled in again about an hour later more from the north.
Same plan as all of the other races, stay in pressure, get ahead of Bo
and Jenny. Stayed ahead of them the
first leg and they faded somewhat.
Marcus banged the left corner on both weather legs and managed to pull out a
second. Mark and Lisa finished
behind him in third. The last race
we just tried to sail our own race and let everyone else duke it out.
We finished at the top, followed by Mark and Lisa, Marcus in third and
returning sailor Dave Archer in 4th.
Day 3 summary: 2 meals, 3 races, Finally!
The
Augusta Sailing Club did an incredible job with everything except for the wind.
Regatta chairman, Jim Holder, (the guy in charge of the wind) recruited people
who did a terrific job with everything else. Carol Holder (Jim’s wife) and her
team were in charge of all of the meals. She was at the club every morning at 6
to start the coffee and was still there at 7:30 or 8:00 pm doing dishes after
dinner. The feature meal was a “cook your own” steak dinner. The steaks were
ribeyes that averaged a pound apiece. I spoke about the meals first because we
spent a lot more time eating than we did racing.
That
brings me to our PRO, Jeff Annis. Considering what he had to work with, he did a
great job. His biggest challenge, other than the lack of wind, was rounding up
his hung-over team on Sunday morning. Apparently, they were all forced to attend
the wedding reception of two former and/or current club commodores. The first
race on Sunday featured some lost gear: 1 leeward mark, 3 anchors and Ed Durant.
Elise (Sproul)
Annis was in charge of housing. Everyone was able to stay in a variety of
accommodations on site. There was no reason to have to leave the club grounds
all weekend.
It was
also great to see all of the juniors on the race course.
We had several who were skippering and quite a few who were crew.
Winning the junior trophy was Tripp Stanton and his crew.
Jeffrey Holder and his son Wyatt won the parent/child category.
Let’s keep these kids out there!
See
everyone in Key Largo,
John
Potter
Quotes
from the regatta—Sat. night:
I don’t
have a wife but I’m paying for one.
(Rich Jeffries)
If you
don’t know how to roll-tack, at least make sure your top batten is not inverted.
(John Potter)
Speed
kills. (Mark Allen/Jim Holder)
Men do
what they want, boys do what they can (Aaron, Van Moss’ s Crew)
Let me know when you need me to move
(Jenny Samuelson)
My
husband is so romantic during regattas.
Last night he asked if I wanted to go throw up with him.
(Lisa Allen).