This is a long story of a new team of thin blooded SD sailors trekking east
to test the hospitality of the 5o5 fleets on the right coast.
When the newly formed Team Sanchez was putting together our schedule, we
looked at the calendar and thought... cool- St. Francis Fall Dinghy... ROAD
TRIP!!!!!
Then Ali Meller manged to get an email across my screen about the East Coat
Championships in Annapolis the same weekend and that there may be boats
available for charter. I thought... hey, I bet I can get us there for a
song with some frequent flier miles and sailing on the east coast would be
awesome... never done it. And he is also selling 30+ boats on the starting
line! To me, that means 15-20 but still a good turnout. True to his word,
within a couple days, he hooked me up with Nick Place who had a Parker 8316
as his "old" boat and offered to let me borrow it (for free) if I had
insurance. We obtained said insurance for $100 as part of insuring 7095 and
Southwest obliged us with super cheap fairs ($98 ea way direct- I can't tow
a boat to SF for that!) and we were on!!!! Ali hosted us at his house and I
turned in some more rental car miles for a free ride while we were there
making the trip very cheap from the logistics perspective. We did have to
pay $50 each way to bring our sails but that was a small price overall.
We flew non-stop from SD-Baltimore and landed to calm conditions and "not
warm" weather. Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay is really beautiful but it
was clear the seasons were changing.
Arriving at Severn Sailing Association (SSA) straight from the airport, we
were warmly greeted by a number of other teams rigging and a couple coming
off the water from a pre-regatta warmup. Actually, "warm up" is not the
right term... Ethan Bixby was just back from training and I shook hand in
greeting and then told Mike a couple minutes later "dude- did you feel how
cold his hand was!!!! That was to be a premonition for the weekend.
Upon arriving at Nick\'s fully rigged boat (which he also trailored 30 mile
for us- Thanks Nick!), we spent Thursday afternoon figuring out which lines
did what and marking them all for future reference. First smart thing we
did- pack duct tape and a marker. Unfortunately, as the weekend went on,
the number of smart things we did were fewer and farther in between.
We wound up at Dave\'s, a very cool local sailor's hang out with a down home
feel I would call "comfortable dive". Unfortunately, we spent way too long
there that night (I personally am blaming being on west coast time) and we
may have had a few too many beers. Gonna' happen- but a good time was had
by all.
Day one of the regatta. Two races scheduled and a long trip to the course.
Heading out, (with a hangover) we realized that it was actually 7:15 AM SD
time and that this was no time (or temperature) to be sailing in. It was
actually to 45 mins of reaching in 7-9 kts to the race course. It was also
cold. I don't think it every made 60 and even in light air- the wind chill
had an impact. We wore everthing we brought with us but before the races
started we were already cold. As long as we kept moving it was not bad but
between races hurt.
We were so excited about the 30 boat start we forgot the first start was
practice and it took a couple moments for us to calm down and figure out why
warm" weather. Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay is really beautiful but it
was clear the seasons were changing.
Arriving at Severn Sailing Association (SSA) straight from the airport, we
were warmly greeted by a number of other teams rigging and a couple coming
off the water from a pre-regatta warmup. Actually, "warm up" is not the
right term... Ethan Bixby was just back from training and I shook hand in
greeting and then told Mike a couple minutes later "dude- did you feel how
cold his hand was!!!!" That was to be a premonition for the weekend.
Upon arriving at Nick's fully rigged boat (which he also trailored 30 mile
for us- Thanks Nick!), we spent Thursday afternoon figuring out which lines
did what and marking them all for future reference. First smart thing we
did- pack duct tape and a marker. Unfortunately, as the weekend went on,
the number of smart things we did were fewer and farther in between.
We wound up at Davis's, a very cool local sailor's hang out with a down home
feel I would call "comfortable dive". Unfortunately, we spent way too long
there that night (I personally am blaming being on west coast time) and we
may have had a few too many beers. Gonna' happen- but a good time was had
by all.
Day one of the regatta. Two races scheduled and a long trip to the course.
Heading out, (with a hangover) we realized that it was actually 7:15 AM SD
time and that this was no time (or temperature) to be sailing in. It was
actually to 45 mins of reaching in 7-9 kts to the race course. It was also
cold. I don't think it every made 60 and even in light air- the wind chill
had an impact. We wore everthing we brought with us but before the races
started we were already cold. As long as we kept moving it was not bad but
between races hurt.
We were so excited about the 30 boat start we forgot the first start was
practice and it took a couple moments for us to calm down and figure out why everyone was going back. Dooh!!!!
For the real start we gated about 2/3 of the way up the line in clear air
(our best start of the regatta) and had a good race but noticed that aside
from being set up to 25' 8" we were clearly off the pace. In the puffs of 9-
11 the boat really moved well for but in the lulls of 6-8 we died. No
amount of tweaking could get more power out of the boat. The races were
sausage, triangle, sausage, DW finish with worlds lengths legs (1.25 miles)
and they were LONG! RC also decided to get in three races making the whole
cold ordeal even longer. Being slow in the races actually helped as we did
not have to wait as long for the next race to start!
The other real killer was our boat handling. With 33 boats, one blown gybe
at the reach mark let 4 boats through!!! In race two we blew a douse and
let 5 boats by us. Fortunately, we could reel them in upwind if the breeze
stayed up in our 10+ range and we always managed to stay out of the
basement. If the wind was light, we were stuck. Races 2-3 were much the
same as race 1 and we were at least consistant, if not a little off the pace.
In the debrief Friday Barney Harris made us second-guess the calibration of
the rig and we realized that we needed to make sure the calibration was on.
Turns out it was well off and we had spent the day at 25' 5" which explains
perfectly our power problems. The boat had not been used in a year and this
was one of our many lessons from the weekend... always recalibrate! For
furute reference, always get out in the boat a day inadvance... we spent the
first day "in the boat" and not racing.
Friday's entertainment was the much awaited Bargatta. Mark Zupan, an
Annapolis downtown local (most of the bartenders somehow knew his name)
arranged the bargatta, complete with course chart, and a guide. I think we
hit 6 or 7 bars, all very cool and all walking distance from each other with a group of probably 10-30 people (depending on the bar and time of night).
It was fun taking over a bar, clearing out the locals, and then 45 mins
later leaving it deserted but much richer. Everyone had a good time.
Team Sanchez bailed at 12:30, near the end, but before the eventual winner
(a Canadian- go figure) made it 'till the last bar closed at 2AM. In our
defense, he was substantially younger than we were and not fighting time
zones. He also looked the worse for the effort on Saturday. Yeah, yeah, I
know... a Canadian? Sorry guys.
Saturday's race started with more wind and colder temps. Wind was
definitely on and the temp was down at least 5 degrees from Friday. We
fixed a lot of the problems with rigging we had on Friday and went out to
the course. It was a fantastic 30 minute blast reach, 1/2 with the kite up,
in 11-15 kts anf very puffy. We had a total blast bashing through the chop
and getting soaked in the process. There were perma-smiles on our faces as
the boat would blast across the 2' chop fully planing with water spewing up
through the center board case!!! Mistake #43- don't get wet!!! We arrived
the start line just in time but already cold (it was low 50's) and tried to
get the rig to stand back up (I had raked back during the reach). For all
we could try, we could not get the rig to stand up. We started the race
but with boats passing us from underneath, were faced with the decision to
either get crushed from below all day or retire unless we could fix the
rig. We decided that retiring and licking our wounds (and not getting frost
bite) would be the best option. The blast back to the dock was again fun
and we spent the time correcting the problem with the rig (mainly a block
that had gotten stuck on a ridge in the CB case) and warmed ourselves as
many others also retired from the cold- even some locals- which made us feel
better.
Saturday night's entertainment was a buffet dinner served by "Feed Your
Crew", the in-house catering service (apparently also known as "The Angry Chef"). They have served tons and tons of food to many regatta's, but
apparently the 2005 ECC's made a record of 60 people eating food for 80 in
19 mins and 56 seconds. Something to be proud of!!!!
Saturday night saw Geoff and Mike back at Davis's going over strategy for
Sunday. We knew we had a boat that could be fast and we had worked out most
of the bugs, but our biggest problem was in boat handling (this was our
first regatta together and we are both drivers) and the fact we had to get
to the airport at a reasonable hour for our flight back. If Sunday was
light, we were going to bail racing (or more appropriately, bail going an
hour aech way to the race course for one race) and spend the time in the
Severn River doing boat handling drills and calling wind (it was still very
puffy). Well, Sunday turned out gorgeous and there was warm weather (low-
mid 60's) and light wind. We got there (an hour early, due to someone's
chrono-dyslexia) rigged up and headed out. We spent the next 2 hours in
fantastic super-puffy conditions practicing both calling wind and our tacks
and gybes (which had cost us dearly while racing days 1+2). After two
hours, we noticed the aluminum hoop of the main sheet system was ready to
break, and decided it was a VERY good time to call it a day. Nick was
gracious about the main sheet hoop (it had been on it's way out for awhile)
and the accident we had in day 1, (not our fault and another story
completely) and apologized for the breakdowns. Nick was super nice and we
thank him tons- without him we would not have been able to pull it off.
The awards ceremony was cool with Ethan Bixby winning the ECC's (for the
first time since like 1979 or something like that) and a tie for second.
Overall it was a great time with fantastic hospitality from the local fleet
and beautiful racing. The first two days were colder than normal and colder than we had gear for but Sunday was truely amazing and to be sure, a good
time was had by all. I would strongly encourage to visit and sail in
Annapolis. The locals were all very warm and hospitable and clearly love
their one-design racing. A number of people have business in SD and were
interested in sailing out here. Hopefully we will get the opportunity to
show the same level of hospitality.
Cheers,
Geoff Nelson
USA 7095
Team Sanchez
