Team Sailing for Life Ties for First in the Clagett Jr. Memorial Regatta - August 28-30, 2007
The C. Thomas Clagett Jr. Memorial Regatta has been an excellent opportunity for JP & Karen to train in Newport, the same venue as the Paralympic Trials in October. Unfortunately, Team Sailing for Life was not able to sail in the last two regattas with the other USA teams, so we had some catching up to do. Watching the other teams bring out their new sails for this regatta, JP and I decided to save our new sails for the Worlds and the Trials. We sailed using the boats original very used sails.
Day one brought light, fluky winds out of the north and south ranging from 4 to 7 knots. A full moon brought strong current lines filled with weed and kelp. In the first race, we had an excellent start with good speed off the line. Sailing through an unavoidable current line, we hooked weed on both rudders and keel. Our speed plumaged - we finished last. Ouch, not a good way to start a regatta. We managed to avoid weed in race 2, taking a first place. In race 3, we had a big lead at the top third of the first windward leg when our main sheet and bridle become detached and we completely lost our main sheet. JP had to hold the main to continue sailing. We made it to the windward mark in first, rounded, hoisted the spinnaker sailing as deep as we could since the main was completely out and still managed to round the leeward mark in first. Since proper sail trim with a main sheet was impossible, Nick & Maureen passed us in the middle of the second upwind leg. JP did a yeoman’s job holding the main in so we could continue to sail. We tacked at least eight extra times just so JP could switch which arm he was holding the boom with. Amazingly, we still finished second right after Nick.
On day two, we lead several of the races but ended up dropping to second. In one race, our spin sheet jammed during a gybing dual with Scott and Julia and they managed to steal our wind and get ahead. We finished very close in every race and took four second place finishes to take us into the lead by two points.
On day three, we won the first race. We lead the second race by at least 40 boats lengths when we caught weed on the downwind leg. Now with no speed, Scott & Julia passed us to take the lead. With one more race to go, people were already beginning to congratulate us for winning the regatta. All we had to do was not allow two boats to finish between us and Scott & Julia. No problem, right? Wrong. We covered them for the first leg, sailing down wind, we again caught weed, and we almost stopped dead in the water. We hoped the weed would release itself while upwind by tacking several times. Some released, however, we never completely gained our speed back. All five boats finished within five seconds of each other, but that one second behind the fourth boat left us tied with Scott & Julia with them winning the tie breaker.
Lessons learned. Don’t hook weed! How? Good question. We sit too low in the boat to see the weed until it is too late. Avoid current lines? Sometimes that is where we want to sail. Back down during a race? Maybe we should in a long race since we have excellent boat speed and could very possibly catch up.
Competition is tough. He who sails fast, makes the least mistakes, has no break downs, and does not hook weed will come out ahead. That is our goal! We have what it takes. It will be refreshing and fast to use the new sails!
Thank Al Towle for all you help in making this victory possible. Al has towed our SKUD from Florida to Newport, and sail his Oyster to Newport to provide housing for him and others. Thank you Donna Zappin flying up from Florida to help us. You were a great help. We appreciate you! Thank you also to your friends David and Barbara who also helped! Once again, Thank you to Betsy Allison, Jeff Sullivan and Lee Lcyda for your coaching.
Sunday September 2 we tow our SKUD to Rochester, New York to prepare for the IFDS World Championships.