| the Rock
Hall One-Design Summer Regatta & Chester River
Race Regatta Report by Uncle Al ... |
|
Rock
Hall Regatta Rocks The 2005 Rock Hall Regatta and Chester River Race were sailed in glorious conditions June 17-19. Our Wayfarer hosts, Frank and Sue Pedersen (W4270), again welcomed the Wayfarers into their Chestertown home on the Thursday night for a lovely dinner party. It was a smaller group this year as a number of W's had been forced to cancel out at the last minute, but we did get to sit out on the back deck on a lovely, warm evening, unlike last year when violent storms hit the area Thursday night. The three Wayfarer teams - Tony Krauss with Mary Abel, Uncle Al with Marc Bennett plus, of course, Frank and Sue - were joined again by Lee and Karin Cowperthwait in whose home Marc and Al would be privileged to stay once more. It was a fun evening with beer, great food and dessert plus lots of sailing (and other) talk. Frank and Al
happily exchanged reminiscences from the 1978 Worlds
held in Hellerup where both expect to compete in the
next Worlds in 2007. Frank was also prevailed upon to
tell us a bit more about the 24-foot wooden WindSprite (photo below) which
he finished building at his summer home in Maine last
year, and which is performing very well.
|
 |
|
It turns out
that Frank not only built the WindSprite
but also designed it. For anyone wanting this
award-winning "Wayfarer on steroids", Frank has the
plans available for sale. Later this year, Frank will
turn his attention to W8705, the partially completed
wooden Wayfarer kit he acquired last fall. We made it
a relatively early night, what with the River Race on
tap for the next morning.
|
 |
|
Duly fortified
by a marvellous sleep in luxuriously comfortable beds
in our lovely upstairs suite at Lee and Karin's (photo above) plus one of Lee's
marvellous breakfasts, we were all set to head outside
(photo of Lee and Karin from last year
below) to check the
actual winds against the moderate westerlies being
forecast.
|
 |
|
Well, we
actually did not have to go outside since Lee has an
anemometer that is mounted on one of the fence posts
above and that can be read in a cozy corner of their
living room. But going outside did give Uncle Al the
chance to become better acquainted with the
Cowperthwaits' five lovely cats while having a quick
smoke.
In
due course, the three Wayfarer teams met up in the
boat park of the Chester River Yacht & Country
Club to launch and get mentally up for an |
 |
|
By race time, it
was becoming clear that while the forecast had gotten
the westerly wind direction right, they had
understated the strength as the winds were gusting
well into the Wayfarer planing range of 15 to 20 and
even 25 knots. This development understandably
under-delighted Sue who was already a reluctant
fill-in crew for Frank's daughter, Sarah, who had been
unable to make the trip from
|
 |
|
Apart from
capsizes by an A-Cat and a Hobie plus a disabled 14
whose rudder was broken as it met the river mud on a
full plane, we never saw these guys again. Word is
that the leaders arrived at the finish line - 14 miles
away - just over an hour later, prompting a panic call
from RHYC Commodore, Chuck Parry, asking club
bartender, Lee Cowperthwait, if the 3 p.m. bar opening
could be moved up.
Aboard
SHADES, we had a good race for first
place among monohulls with Mark Redmond in his
Highlander and Bob Blomquist in his lovely |
 |
 |
|
Our Race
Committee, under Dyer Harris, once again met the huge
challenge presented by ten classes in seven separate
starts on the same course in amazingly impressive
fashion despite shifty winds. After the initial
sequence of seven starts, there was hardly any waiting
around as Dyer simply ran whichever group was ready to
go next. And he had cleverly set the start line 100
yards to leeward of the leeward mark of our
windward-leeward course so that there was no conflict
between boats completing their run and those about to
start. Over the course of two medium air days, most
classes completed five good races - a real tribute to
Dyer and his small race committee. Thanks and
congratulations on a job extremely well done, to Dyer
and his crew! How good was this committee? They were
so good that they got us off the water just in time
for most of us to be unrigged and packed before the
rains came on Sunday! Is that great timing or what??!!
Our small fleet of 3 Wayfarers was paired with a group of three Windmills (see photo below of one of the Windmills after Sunday's racing) - a fortuitous choice since we were very evenly matched in speed under these conditions: a bit slower upwind but marginally faster off the wind than the spinnaker-less Windmills who were practicing for their Nationals the following weekend at Rock Hall. |
 |
|
As might have
been expected, Al and Marc won all five races against
the far less experienced competition - with Al helming
the three Saturday races and Marc getting slightly
stronger winds for his turn at the helm on the Sunday.
A surprise was the fine performance of Tony Krauss and
Mary Abel who were sailing their first series in W4105
and managed a series second, to make Frank and Sue
Pedersen be the perfect hosts - albeit rather
reluctantly.
All in all, Rock
Hall again put on a magnificent show. In addition to
the fine racing, we got a fine Saturday night dinner
and Sunday lunch. There was great old time rock'n'roll
from a live band after Saturday's racing. Since last
year, the Rock Hall YC has doubled the size of their
deck, added more showers, and - great news for those
with kiddies - installed a fine swimming pool. There
is still limitless space for camping and the
surrounding area takes you back to a slower-paced life
in beautiful surroundings that are rich in history and
remain largely uninfested by developers.
All it needs for
next year is more Wayfarers!! Come on,
guys - it's for your own good!!!! |